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ALLIES' DAY 

From the Original Painting 
By Childe Hassam 

" / uxint the picture dedicated to the British and French 
nations commemorating the coming together of the three 
peoples in the Fight for Democracy." 



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DEFENDERS OF 
DEMOCRACY 

Contributions from representative men 
and women of letters and other arts 
from our allies and our own country 



EDITED BY 

THE GIFT BOOK COMMITTEE 

OF 

THE MILITIA OF MERCY 



" The kinship of blood between nations may 
grow weaker, but the kinship of ideals and 
purposes constitutes a permanent bond of 
union." John Lewis Griffiths 



NEW YORK: JOHN LANE COMPANY 

LONDON : JOHN LANE, THE BODLEY HEAD 

MCMXVIII 



.1)4 



COPYRIGHT, I917 
BY JOHN LANE COMPANY 



All rights reserved 



The net proceeds of the sale of this book 
will be used in aiding the needy families 
of the men of the Naval Militia who have 
been called to the defense of liberty. 



<o 



THE-PLIMPTON-PRESS 
NOEWOOD'UASS-U-S-A 



DEC -6 1917 
©CI.A477864 



TO 



OUR SAILORS, SOLDIERS, AND NURSES 

IN APPRECIATION OF THEIR 

HEROISM AND SACRIFICE IN THE CAUSE 

OF 

LIBERTY AND DEMOCRACY 



"Oh, land of ours be glad of such as these." 

THEODOSIA GARRISON 



1 such a task we can dedicate our lives and our fortunes, every- 
thing that we are, and everything that we have, with the pride of 
those who know that the day has come when America is privileged 
to spend her blood and her might for the principles that gave her 
birth and happiness, and the peace which she has treasured. God 
helping her, she can do no other. 

WooDROw Wilson. 



A MESSAGE FROM 
VICE ADMIRAL WILLIAM SOWDEN SIMS, U.S.N. 

Commanding the American Naval Forces Operating in European Waters 

In such an hour as that with which we are now confronted, when so 
much depends upon individual efforts, our hearts swell with pride 
as we learn of the thousands of America's best, staunch and true 
men who are so willingly forgetting their own personal welfare 
and linking their lives and all that they are with the cause of liberty 
and justice, which is so dear to the hearts of the American people. 
All honor to those who are giving themselves as such willing sacri- 
fices, and may God grant that their efforts may be speedily re- 
warded by a world condition which will make them realize that 
their efforts have accomplished the desired result, and that the 
world is better and happier because of them. 




AMERICAN EXPEDITIONARY FORCE 
OFFICE OF THE COMMANDING GENERAL 

August 4th, 1917. 

1 AM very pleased to have an opportunity to say a word in praise 
of the Militia of Mercy. 

Unless our women are imbued with Patriotic sentiments, there 
will be little to hope for in our life. A nation is only as great as 
its womanhood; and, as are the women, so are the sons. All praise 
to the women of America! 

Please accept my very best wishes for the success of your organ- 
ization. 



INTRODUCTION 

I HAVE seldom yielded so willingly to a request for my written 
views as I do in this instance, when my valued friend, the mas- 
ter journalist, Melville E. Stone, has asked me, on behalf of the 
Book Committee, to write an introductory article for "The Defend- 
ers of Democracy." Needless to say, I comply all the more readily 
in view of the fact that the book in which these words will appear 
is planned by the ladies of the Militia of Mercy as a means of in- 
creasing the Fund the Society is raising for the benefit of the 
families of "their own men" on the battle-line. 

And, what a theme! It demands a volume from any pen 
capable of doing it justice. For the present purposes, however, I 
approve strongly of a compilation which shall express the reasoned 
opinions of writers representing the allied nations, while it is a real 
pleasure to turn for a few minutes from the day's anxieties and 
consider the one great force which supplies the leaven to a war- 
sodden world. Are men to live in freedom or as slaves to a soul- 
less system? — that is the question which is now being solved in 
blood and agony and tears on the battlefields of the Old World. 
The answer given by the New World has never been in doubt, 
but its clarion note was necessarily withheld in all its magnificent 
rhythm until President Wilson delivered his Message to Congress 
last April. I have no hesitation in saying that Mr. Wilson's utter- 
ance will become immortal. It is a new declaration of the Rights 
of Man, but a finer, broader one, based on the sure principles of 
Christian ethics. Yet, mark how this same nobility of thought 
and purpose runs like a vein of gold through the rock of valiant 
little Belgium's defiance of the Hun, of President Poincare's firm 
stand, and of Mr. Lloyd George's unflinching labors in the Sisy- 



X INTRODUCTION 

phean task of stemming the Teutonic avalanche. Prussia's chal- 
lenge to the world came with the shock of some mighty eruption 
undreamed of by chroniclers of earthquakes. It stunned hu- 
manity. Nowhere was its benumbing effect more perceptible than 
in these United States, whose traditional policy of non-interference 
in European disputes was submitted so unexpectedly to the fierce 
test of Right versus Expediency. And how splendidly did Presi- 
dent, Senator, Congress and the People respond to the test! Never 
for one instant did America's clear judgment falter. The Hun 
was guilty, and must be punished. The only issue to be solved was 
whether France, Britain, Italy and Russia should convict and 
brand the felon unaided, or the mighty power of the Western 
World should join hands with the avengers of outraged law. Well, 
a purblind Germany settled that uncertainty by a series of misdeeds 
which no nation of high ideals could allow to pass unchallenged. 
I do believe most firmly that President Wilson gave tlie criminal 
such chances of reform as no court of law in the world would 
grant. But, at last, his patience was exhausted. Whether the 
enslavers of Germany thought, in that crass ignorance of other 
men's minds they have so often displayed, that America meant to 
keep out of the war at all costs, or were merely careless of conse- 
quences so long as the immediate end was attained, is now imma- 
terial. From the welter of Teutonic misdeeds and lies arises the 
vital, the soul-inspiring spectacle of a union of all democracies 
against the common foe. 

And right here, as the direct speech of New York has it, I want 
to pay tribute to the sagacity, the clarity of vision, the sure divina- 
tion of the truth amidst a fog of deceit, which has characterized 
almost the whole Press of the United States since those feverish 
days at the end of July, 1914, when the nightmare of war was so 
quickly succeeded by its dread reality. Efforts which might fairly 



INTRODUCTION xi 

be described as stupendous were put forth by the advocates 
of Kuhur to win, if not the approval, at least the strict neutrality 
of America. That the program of calculated misrepresentation 
failed utterly was due in great part to the leading newspapers of 
New York, Chicago, Philadelphia and the other main centers of 
industry and population. Never has the value of a free Press 
been demonstrated so thoroughly. The American editor is ac- 
customed to weigh the gravest problems of life on his own account 
without let or hindrance from tradition, and it can be affirmed most 
positively that, excepting the few instances of a suborned pro-Ger- 
man Press, the newspapers of the United States condemned the Hun 
and his methods as roundly and fearlessly as the Independence 
Beige itself whose staff had actually witnessed the horrors of Vise 
and Louvain. These men educated and guided public opinion. 
Republican or Democrat it mattered not — they set out to determine 
from the material before them what was Right and what was 
Wrong. Once convinced that the Hun was a menace they made 
their readers understand beyond cavil just what that menace meant. 
So I claim that the editors of the United States are entitled to high 
rank among the Defenders of Democracy. When the history of 
the war, or rather a just analysis of its causes and effects, comes to 
be written I shall be much mistaken if the critical historian does 
not give close heed and honorable mention to the men who wrote 
the articles which kept the millions of America thoroughly and 
honestly informed. Think what it would have meant had their 
influence been thrown into the scale against the Allies! By that 
awesome imagining alone can the extent of their service be 
measured. 

If I have wandered a little from my theme, since our veritable 
"Defenders" are the men who are giving their life's blood at the 
front, and the band of noble women who are tending them in hos- 



Xll 



INTRODUCTION 



pital, it will surely be understood that, if I name them last they 
are first in my heart. I have seen much of the war. I know 
what your soldiers, sailors and nurses are called on to endure. 
I rejoice that in dedicating this book to them, you honor them while 
they live. Never let their memory fade when they are dead. 
They gave their lives for their friends, and greater love than that no 
man hath. 




ESSENTIAL SERVICE 

1 WISH all success to ^'The Defenders of Democracy.'* The men 
who are in this war on the part of the United States are doing the 
one vitally important work which it is possible for Americans to 
do at this time. Nothing else counts now excepting that we fight 
this war to a finish. Thost men are thrice fortunate who are given 
the chance to serve under arms at the front. They are not only 
rendering the one essential service to this country and to mankind, 
but they are also earning honor as it cannot otherwise be earned 
by any men of our generation. As for the rest of us, our task is 
to back them up in every way possible. 



KiTTERY Point, Me., 
October 14, 1917. 

1 AM never good at messages or sentiments, but perhaps if Mr. 
Rouland's portrait of me were literally a speaking likeness it would 
entreat you to believe that I revere and honor in my heart and soul, 
the noble ideals of the Militia of Mercy. 

Yours sincerely, 



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J. HE Editors gratefully acknowledge the rich contributions to this hook, 
which it has been their privilege to arrange. The generous spirit which 
has accompanied each gift permeates the pages, and its genial glow will be 
felt by all of our readers. 

The book is only a fire-side talk on the ideals and purposes held in^ 
common by those who belong to the friendly circle of the Allies, and is not 
intended to have diplomatic, economic or official significance. The Edi- 
tors, however, have been honored by the approval of their plan, and have 
received invaluable assistance from diplomatists, statesmen and men of 
affairs in securing contributions otherwise inaccessible at the present time. 
We wish to acknowledge (although we cannot adequately express our 
appreciation) the gift from the President of the United States of his 
portrait, and his kind recognition of our desire to render an international 
service. 

We are especially indebted to Viscount IsHii, Special Ambassador from 
Japan to Washington, D. C, and to Lord NoRTHCLiFFE, Chairman of 
The British War Mission, for their thoughtful and sympathetic articles 
written during days crowded with official duties. 

We owe a debt of thanks to His Excellency, the Italian Ambassador, 
for the privilege of publishing, for the first time in America, D'Annun- 
zio's sonnet to General Cadorna; to Their Excellencies, the Portuguese, 
Greek and Chinese Ministers, for helpful suggestions and translations; to 
Mr. William Phillips, Assistant Secretary of State; to Mr. John Hays 
Hammond; to Mr. John Lane, Mr. W. J. Locke, Mrs. Theodore Mc- 
Kenna, all of London, England, who assembled our rich English contribu- 
tions for us; to Mr. William de Leftwich Dodge for the cover design, 
a rare and beautiful tribute to our defenders; to Mr. Melville E. Stone, 
without whose personal influence we could not have secured contributions 
from all of our Allies in so short a time; to Mr. J. Jefferson Jones and 
Mr. William Dana Orcutt, who have devoted time and thought without 
stint to the making of the book, and have given the committee the advan- 
tage of their technical knowledge and distinguished taste entirely as a, 
patriotic service; to Miss Lilian Elliott for her many translations from 
Portuguese and Spanish writers; to Miss La Montaigne, Chairman of 
The Cardinal Mercier Fund; to Mr. Talcott Williams, Mr. Robert 
Underwood Johnson, Mr. Daniel Frohman; to The British War Mission, 
The Friends of France and Her Allies Committee, and to The Russian and 
Serbian Civil Relief Committees. To all we give our heartfelt thanks. 

The Editors. 



PREFACE 

X HIS beautiful book is the expression of the eager desire of all of 
the gifted men and women who have contributed to it and of the mem- 
bers of the Militia of Mercy to render homage to our sailors, soldiers, 
nurses and physicians who offer the supreme sacrifice to free the stricken 
people of other lands and to protect humanity with their bodies from an 
enemy who has invented the name and created the thing "welt-schmerz" — 
world anguish. But we want it to do more than extol their heroism and 
sacrifice, we want The Defenders of Democracy to help them win the war. 
It has been the thought of those who planned the book to meet three things 
needful, not only to the army at the front, but to that vaster army at home 
who watch and work and wait (and perhaps we need it more than they 
who have the stimulus of action) — to strengthen the realization that 
our soldiers of sea and land, though far away, are fighting for a cause 
which is vitally near the heart of every man and every woman, and the 
soul of every nafion — human freedom; "to forge the weapon of victory 
by fanning the flame of cheerfulness," and to be the means of lifting the 
burden of anxiety from those who go, lest their loved ones should suffer 
privation, bereft of their protecting care. So truly is this an Age of 
Service, that the response to the scope and spirit of our work was imme- 
diate and within four months from the day we sent our first request for 
co-operation in carrying out our plans, we had received the rich contri- 
butions contained in this book from men and women of letters and other 
arts, not only from our own generous country, but from all of our allies. 
Perhaps the most difficult task fell to those who were asked not to write 
of the war but to practice the gentle art of cheering us all up — an art so 
easily lost in these days of sorrow, suspense and anxiety — yet we have 
received many delightful contributions in harmony with this request, and 
so the cheerful note, the finer optimism, recurs again and again, and is 
sustained to the last page. 

Such a book is historic. It is a consecration of the highest gifts to the 
cause of human freedom and human fraternity. The Militia of Mercy, 
in expressing its gratitude to the men and women so greatly endowed who 
have made this book possible, trust they will find a rich reward in the 
thought that it will give both spiritual and material aid to those who are 
fighting in the great war. 



xviii PREFACE 

The book will be sold for the benefit of the families of the men of the 
Naval Militia now in the Federal Service and taking part in sea warfare. 
John Lane Company have published the book at cost, so that the 
publishers' profits, as well as our own, will be given to the patriotic work 
of the Militia of Mercy. 

It has been repeatedly said during the past year that America had not 
begun to feel the war. If America has not, how many Americans there 
are who have! We all know that the responsibilities and inequalities 
of war were felt first by our sailors. The whole outlook on life changed 
for many families of the Naval Militia the day after diplomatic relations 
with Germany were severed. Husbands, fathers and sons were called to 
service without any opportunity to provide for current expenses or to 
arrange for the future welfare of their loved ones. The burden of 
providing for the necessities of life fell suddenly, without warning, upon 
the wives and mothers of the civilian sailors. The world knew nothing 
of these cases, but the members of the Militia of Mercy who have visited 
the needy families, realize with what heroism, courage and self-sacrifice 
the women have done and are doing their part. 

For those of us who look on, to help them is not charity, but opportunity 
for patriotic service to give a very little to those who are giving all they 
cherish and all they hold dear for the sake of human Liberty and 
Democracy. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 

PAGE 

WOODROW WILSON, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED 
STATES. A Message vi 

VICE ADMIRAL WILLIAM SOWDEN SIMS, U.S.N. 
A Message vii 

Commanding the American Naval Forces Operating in European Waters 

GENERAL JOHN J. PERSHING, U.S.A. A Letter. . . . viii 

Commanding General American Expeditionary Force 

LORD NORTHCLIFFE. Introduction ix 

Chairman, British War Mission to the United States 

THEODORE ROOSEVELT. Essential Service xiii 

Twenty-sixth President of the United States. Author and Statesman 

WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS. A Letter xiv 

American Author, New York, President of the American Academy of Arts 
and Letters 

HERMANN HAGEDORN. "How Can I Serve?" xv 

American Writer, New York. President, Vigilantes, American League of 
Artists and Authors for Patriotic Services 

PREFACE xvii 

CONTRIBUTIONS OF WRITERS 

BELGIUM 
GASTON DE LEVAL. Relgium and America 3 

Belgian Advocate for Edith Cavell 

EMILE CAMMAERTS. Good Old Rernstorff! 6 

Belgian Poet 

CHINA 
TSA YUAN-PEL The War in Europe 8 

Chancellor of the Government University of Peking 

(Translation, Courtesy of the Chinese Minister) 
xix 



XX TABLE OF CONTENTS 

PAGE 

A SYMPOSIUM— DEMOCRACY 
GEORGE STERLING. Invocation 9 

American Poet, California 

GEORGE A. BIRMINGHAM. The Test 10 

(Canon James O. Ilannay) Irish Clergyman and Man of Letters 

JOHN GALSWORTHY. The New Comradeship 12 

English Writer 

WILLIAM J. LOCKE. Questionings 14 

English Novelist 

HENRY VAN DYKE. Democracy in Peace and War. . . 17 

American Clergyman, Diplomat and Writer 

AN INTERLUDE 
HARRIET MONROE. Sunrise over the Peristyle .... 18 

American Poet, Chicago 

THE DRAMA 
DANIEL FROHMAN. Reminiscences of Booth 20 

Theatrical Manager and Writer, New York 

J. HARTLEY MANNERS. God of My Faith: A One Act Play 24 

Dramatist, New York 

FRANCE 
FREDERICK COUDERT. To France 44 

American Lawyer and Publicist 

ANATOLE FRANCE. Ce Que Disent Nos Morts 47 

French Author. (Translation by Emma M. Pope) 

RUPERT HUGHES. The Transports (Poetical Version of 

SuUy Prud'homme's "Les Berceaux") 53 

American Writer, New York 

STEPHANE LAUZANNE. La Priere du Poilu 54 

French Writer, Editor Le Matin. (Translation by Madame Carlo 
Polifeme) 

GREAT BRITAIN 
HONOURABLE JAMES M. BECK. A Tribute to England 61 

American Lawyer and Publicist 

LORD BRYCE. Unity and Peace 66 

English Statesman and Author 



TABLE OF CONTENTS xxi 

PAGE 

ROBERT HICHENS. Our Common Heritage 67 

English Novelist 

STEPHEN McKENNA. Poetic Justice 69 

English Statesman and Novelist 

LADY ABERDEEN. The Spell of the Kilties 84 

(Wife of the Marquis of Aberdeen and Temair, K.T., Scotland) 

MRS. BELLOC LOWNDES. Sherston's Wedding Eve . . 87 

English Novelist, London 

RALPH CONNOR. A Canadian Soldier's Dominion Day at 

Shorncliffe 105 

Canadian Novelist 

STEPHEN LEACOCK. Simple as Day Ill 

Canadian Writer, Professor McGill University, Montreal 

MAY SINCLAIR. The Epic Standpoint in the War ... 118 

English Writer, London 

GREECE 
ELEUTHERIOS VENIZELOS. The Greek Spirit 122 

(Translation, with notes, by Carroll N. Brown) 

ITALY 

WILLIAM ROSCOE THAYER. Italy and Democracy. 

A Tribute to Italy 127 

American Historian and Poet 

GABRIELE D'ANNUNZIO. Al Generale Cadorna .... 131 

Italian Poet 

C. H. GRANGENT. Sonnet 

(Poetical version in English of the above) 132 

Professor of Romance Languages, Harvard University 

AMY BERNARD Y. The Voice of Italy 133 

Italian Writer 

JAPAN 

VISCOUNT K. ISHII. Japan's Ideals and Her Part in the 

Struggle 137 

Japanese Statesman, Special Ambassador to Washington, D.C., 1917 



xxii TABLE OF CONTENTS 

LATIN AMERICA 
SALOMON DE LA SELVA. Tropical Interlude 141 

Nicaraguan Poet 

LILIAN E. ELLIOTT, F.R.G.S. Latin America and the War . 145 

Literary Editor, Pan American Magazine 

SALOMON DE LA SELVA. Drill 157 

PORTUGAL 
HENRIQUE LOPES DE MENDONCA. The People's 

Struggle 161 

Portuguese writer. Member of Academy of Science, Lisbon 

EDGAR PRESTAGE. Portugal 162 

English Writer, A Friend of Portugal 

ROUMANIA 
ACHMED ABDULLAH. Roumania — An Interpretation . 166 

Novelist. Of the Family of the Ameer of Afghanistan 

RUSSIA 
IVAN NARODNY. The Soul of Russia 169 

Russian Patriot and Writer. Member of the Russian Civilian Relief 
Committee, New York 

IVAN NARODNY. The American Bride 175 

SERGEY MAKOWSKY. The Insane Priest 189 

Russian Poet. (Translation by Constance Purdy) 

SERBIA 
M. BOICH. Without a Country 190 

Serbian Poet. (Translation by Professor Miloche Trivonnatz) 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 
INDIAN PRAYER. To the Mountain Spirit 192 

Interpreted by Mary Austin 

MAURICE HEWLETT. To America, 4 July, 1776 194 

English Man of Letters 

CHARLES W. ELIOT. The Need of Force to Win and 

Maintain Peace 195 

President Emeritus of Harvard University 



TABLE OF CONTENTS xxiii 

PAGE 

JAMES CARDINAL GIBBONS. Woman and Mercy. ... 197 

Cardinal, Baltimore, Maryland 

JOHN LEWIS GRIFFITHS. Joan of Arc — Her Heritage 199 

From an address delivered in London, 1911 

DR. J. H. JOWETT. Things Which Cannot Be Shaken . . 201 

English Clergyman, 5th Ave. Presbyterian Church, N.Y. 

OWEN JOHNSON. Somewhere in France 206 

American Author 

MELVILLE E. STONE. The Associated Press 209 

Journalist, General Manager of the Associated Press, N.Y. 

MARY AUSTIN. Pan and the Pot-Hunter 214 

American Writer, New York 

ROBERT W. CHAMBERS. Men of the Sea 222 

American Author, New York 

ARTHUR GUY EMPEY. Jim — A Soldier of the King. . 226 

American. Volunteer Soldier in British Army and Author, "Over the Top'' 

EDNA FERRER. Heel and Toe 235 

American Novelist, Chicago 

THEODOSIA GARRISON. Those Who Went First . . . '. 243 

American Poet, New Jersey 

LOUISE CLOSSER HALE. A Summer's Day 244 

American Actress and Author, New York 

LOUIS UNTERMEYER. Children of the War 257 

American Poet, New York 

FANNIE HURST. Khaki-Boy 258 

American Novelist and Dramatist, New York 

ROBERT UNDERWOOD JOHNSON. Hymn to America . 269 

American Editor and Author, New York 

AMY LOWELL. The Breaking Out of the Flags .... 270 

American Poet, Cambridge, Mass. 

MRS. JOHN LANE. Our Day 273 

American by Birth, Author, London, England 

GEORGE BARR McCUTCHEON. Pour La Patrie .... 275 

American Novelist, Indiana and New York 

EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY. Sonnet 286 

American Poet, Camden, Maine 



xxiv TABLE OF CONTENTS 

PAGE 

GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. The Idiot 287 

American Author, New York 

JAMES OPPENHEIM. Memories of Whitman and Lincoln . 299 

American Poet, New York 

JAMES F. PRYOR. Bred to the Sea 304 

American Lawyer and Writer 

EVALEEN STEIN. Our Defenders 306 

American Poet and Story Teller, La Fayette, Indiana 

ALICE WOODS. The Bomb 308 

American Story Writer 

MYRON T. HERRICK. To Those Who Go 322 

American Statesman, Diplomatist, Publicist, Cleveland, Ohio 

AMELIE RIVES. The Hero's Peace *. ... 324 

Princess Troubetzkoy, American Novelist and Poet, Virginia 



We gratefully acknowledge the privilege of reproducing the foUoicing articles : — 

"The Need of Force to Win and Maintain Peace," by Dr. C. W. Eliot — A^eu; 
York Times. 

" The Breaking Out of the Flags," by Amy Lowell — Independent. 

"The Bomb," by Alice Woods — Century Magazine. 

"Children of the War," by Louis Untermeyer — Collier's Weekly. 

All other contributions have been especially written for "The Defenders of 
Democracy." 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

CHILDE HASSAM. Allies' Day. 

From the Original Painting. (Color) Frontispiece 

American Artist, New York 

PORTRAIT. WooDROw Wilson, President of the United 

States vi 

PORTRAIT PHOTOGRAPH. His Eminence Cardinal 

Mercier Facing page 4 

ALBERT STERNER. Sympathy. From the Original Drawing . 6 

American Artist, New York 

PHOTOGRAPH. " The Happy Warriors." (Marshal Joffre 

AND General Pershing.) Courtesy of U Illustration, Paris 14 

JULES GUERIN. Ballet by Moonlight. (Color) From the 

Original Painting 20 

American Artist, New York 

JACQUIER. Marshal Joffre. Drawn from life 44 

J. J. VAN INGEN. Memory. From the Original Drawing 52 

American Artist, New York 

PORTRAIT PHOTOGRAPH. The Right Honourable 

Arthur James Balfour 66 

CHARLES DANA GIBSON. Her Answer. From the Original 

sketch 126 

American Artist, New York 

PORTRAIT PHOTOGRAPH. General Cadorna 132 

WILLIAM DE LEFTWICH DODGE. From the Original 
Paintings in Oils 

(1) The Consecration of the Swords Cover design 

(2) Atlantic and Pacific. (Color) 140 

(3) Gateway of All Nations. (Color) 160 

American Artist, New York 

0. E. CESARE. Russia's Struggle. From the Original 

Cartoon 168 

American Artist, New York 

JOHN S. SARGENT. "Big Moon" (Black Foot Chief.) 

From the Original Drawing 192 

American Painter, Boston, Mass. 

xxv 



xxvi ILLUSTRATIONS 

PAGE 

JOHN S. SARGENT. A Profile. From the Original Drawing 

Sketch 194 

GEORGE BARNARD. Abraham Lincoln 196 

American Sculptor, New York 

PORTRAIT IN OIL. Theodore Roosevelt. By George Bur- 
roughs Torrey 204 

In the Brooklyn Museum 

PORTRAIT PHOTOGRAPH. Melville E. Stone 212 

PENRHYN STANLWVS. Souvenir de Jel-n^esse. (Color) 

From Ike Original Pastel 220 

Scotch Artist, New York 

PORTRAIT PHOTOGRAPH. Vice Admiral William Sowden 

Sims 224 

PORTRAIT PHOTOGRAPH. General John J. Pershing 234 
WALTER HALE. "Once the Giant Toy of a People who 

Frolicked." From the Original Water Color 244 

American Artist, New York 

JOHN T. McCUTCHEON. The Married Slacker. 

From the Original Drawing 268 

American Artist, Indiana 

W. ORLANDO ROULAND. Portrait of W. D. Howells. 

From the Original Painting 274 

American Artist, New York 

GEORGE BELLOWS. The SHn>YARD. {Cohr) 

From the Original Oil Painting 304 

American Artist, New York 

JOSEPH PENNELL. Dawn. From the Original Drawing ... 324 

American Artist, New York 

We are grateful to 

The Beck Engr.*.\tng Co., of New York and Philadelphia, for furnishing the 
black-and-white reproductions without charge, and the four-color plates at cost. 

The Plimpton Press, of Norwood, Mass., for its cooperative assistance. 

The Walker Engraving Co., of New York, for supplying the color plates for 
the cover at cost. 

M. Knoedler & Co., of New York, for the privilege of reproducing Jacquier's 
drawing from life of Marechal JofFre. 

Frederick KLeppel & Co., of New York, for Mr. Pennell's drawing. 



DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY 



BELGIUM AND AMERICA 

IT would be a banality to speak about the gratitude of the Belgian 
people toward America. Every one knows from the beginning 
of the war that when the Belgians were faced with starvation, it 
was the American Commission for Relief which saved the situation, 
forming all over the country, in America and elsewhere, those Com- 
mittees who collected the funds raised to help the Belgians, and 
saw that they reached the proper channel and were utilized to the 
best advantage of the Belgian people. 

But helping to feed the people was not enough. The Americans 
did more. They gave their heart. Every one of them who came 
into my country to act as a volunteer for the Commission for 
Relief, brought with him the sympathy of all the people that were 
behind him. Every one of these young Americans, who, under 
the leadership of Mr. Hoover, came into my country to watch the 
distribution of the foodstuffs imported by the Commission for 
Relief, became a sincere friend of my countrymen. He stood be- 
tween us and the Germans as a vigilant sentry of the civilized 
world, and was able to tell when he returned to America all the 
sufferings and all the courage of the Belgian population. 

I remember traveling in America some ten years ago, and being 
asked, while I was reading a Belgian paper, where this paper came 
from and when I answered "It came from Belgium," the next ques- 
tion was: "Belgium? It is a province of France, isn't it?" 
Now I do not think that any person in America, nor in any other 
part of the world, will not know where Belgium is. 

The American Commission for Relief has to be credited with 
putting in closer contact the suffering population of my country 
with all persons the world over who were eager to assist it. It es- 



4 DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY 

pecially brought the sufferings of our people nearer to the heart 
of the American population. Every one knows that. But what 
every one does not know is the silent and effective work performed 
in Belgium by Mr. Brand Whitlock, the American Minister. He 
was the real man at the right place and at the right hour. No one 
could have better than he, with his deep humanitarian feeling, 
been able to understand the moral side of the sufferings of the 
Belgians under the German occupation. No one could better than 
he find, at the very moment when they were needed, the words 
appropriate to meet the circumstances, and to convey to the people 
of this stricken country the feelings which Mr. Whitlock knew were 
beating in the hearts of all Americans. 

When the German authorities forbade the display of the Bel- 
gian Flag, and the Tri-Color so dear to our hearts had to be hauled 
down, the American Flag everywhere took its place. Washington's 
birthday and Independence Day were almost as solemn festivities 
to the Brussels people as the fete Rationale, and thousands of per- 
sons called at the legation on those days ; deputations were sent by 
the town and official authorities to show how deep was the Belgian 
feeling for the United States. America was for the Belgians "w/ie 
second Patrie," because they felt that, although America was at that 
time remaining neutral, her sympathy was entirely on our side, and 
when the time would come she would even prove it on the battle- 
fields. 

It may therefore be said that although the war has had for my 
country the most cruel consequences, there is one consolation to it. 
It has shown that humanity is better than the pessimist had said it 
was, and that money is not the only god before which the nations 
bow. It has revealed that all over the world, and especially in 
America, there is a respect for right and for duty; it has proved 
that the moral beauty of an action is fully appreciated. The war 




/I y^^j^~,,^.j&. ^ y^'-^'-ey. 



«^ ^^^' 






(jfx 




BELGIUM— DE LEVAL 5 

has revealed Belgium to America, and America to Belgium. The 
tie between our two countries is stronger than any tie has ever been 
between two far distant people, and nothing will be able to break 
it, as it rests not on some political interest or some selfish reason, 
but because it has been interwoven with the very fibers of the hearts 
of the people. 



Avocat la cour d'Appel de Bruxelles, 
Legal adviser to the American and British Legations in Belgium. 



6 DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY 

GOOD OLD BERNSTORFF! 

THE entrance of America in the war has been nothing short of 
a miracle — perhaps, with the Marne, the most wonderful 
miracle, among many others, which we have witnessed since 
August, 1914. 

I do not wish to be misunderstood. I am not necessarily re- 
ferring to supernatural influences. This will remain a matter of 
opinion — or rather of belief. I am merely speaking from the 
ordinary point of view of the man in the street concerning what is 
likely or not likely to happen in the world. 

People have very generously admired Belgium's attitude, but 
anybody knowing the Belgians and their King might have prophe- 
sied Liege, and the Yser battle. Others have praised the timely 
interference of England and the self-sacrifice of the many thou- 
sand British volunteers who rushed to arms, during the early days 
of the war, to avenge the wrong done to a small people whose only 
crime was to stand in the way of a blind and ruthless military 
machine. But such an attitude was too much in the tradition of 
British fair play to come as a surprise to those who knew inti- 
mately the country and the people. Besides, from the Govern- 
ment's point of view, non-intervention would have been a politi- 
cal mistake for which the whole nation would have had to pay 
dearly in the near future, as subsequent events have conclusively 
shown. 

But America? What had America to do in the conflict? She 
had not signed tlie treaties guaranteeing Belgium's neutrality. She 
was not directly threatened by German Imperialism. She had 
never taken any part in European politics. Her moral responsi- 
bility was not engaged and her immediate interest was to preserve 













V?*^*^ ^ ' j^^-^ 



^^ 



SYMPATHY 

By Albert Sterner 
From fhe Original Drawing 



BELGIUM— CAMMAERTS 7 

to the end all the advantages of neutrality and to benefit, after the 
war, by the exhaustion of Europe. . . . 

I had the opportunity of seeing, a few days ago, the second 
contingent of American troops marching through London on their 
way to France. The Belgian flag flew from our window and, as 
we cheered the men, some of them, recognizing the colors, waved 
their hand towards us. And as I watched their bright smile and 
remembered the eager interest shown by so many citizens of the 
States to Belgium's fate, and the deep indignation provoked beyond 
the Atlantic by the German atrocities and by the more recent 
deportations, I was inclined to think, for one moment, that I had 
solved the problem, and that their sympathy for Belgium had 
brought these soldiers to the rescue. We are so easily inclined to 
exaggerate the part which one country is playing! 

But as I looked at the men again, I was struck by the grim ex- 
pression on their faces, the almost threatening determination of 
their light swinging step. And I soon realized that neither their 
sympathy for England, France or Belgium had brought them here. 
They had not come merely to fight for other peoples, they had their 
own personal grievance. They were not there only to help their 
friends, but also to punish their enemies. 

As I turned in to resume my work, I heard a friend of mine 
who whispered, rubbing his hands: "Good old Bernstorff^! Kind 
old von Paepen! Blessed old Ludendorf !" 

And I understood that Germany had been our best champion, 
and that her plots, her intrigues, and her U boats had done more 
to convert America than our most eloquent denunciations. There 
is no neutrality possible in the face of lawlessness and Germanism. 
Sooner or later we feel that "he who is not with Him is against 
Him." And there is no compromise, no conciliation which might 
prevail against such feeling. /^ ^ 



8 CHINA AND THE WAR IN EUROPE 



THE WAR IN EUROPE 

Translation of a part of an address by Mr. Tsa Yuan-Pei, Chancellor of the Gov- 
ernment University of Peking and formerly Minister of Education in the first Repub- 
lican Cabinet, delivered on March 3rd, 1917, at Peking before the "Wai Chiao Hou 
Yuan Hui," or a "Society for the Support of Diplomacy." 

I AM a scholar and not a practical politician. Therefore I can 
only give you my views as a man of letters. As I see it, 
the War in Europe is really one between Right and Might, or in 
other words, between Morality and Savagery. Our proverbs run 
to this effect: "Every one should sweep the snow in front of his 
door and leave alone the frost on the roof of his neighbor," and thai 
"when the neighbors are fighting, close your door." These prov- 
erbs have been used by the anti-war party in China as arguments 
against China's entrance into the War. The War in Europe, how- 
ever, is not the "frost on the roof of our neighbor," but rather the 
"snow right in front of our door." It is not a "fight between neigh- 
bors," but rather a quarrel within the family — the family of Na- 
tions. China therefore cannot remain indifferent. For, if Ger- 
many should eventually win the War, it would mean the triumph 
of Might over Right, and the world would be without moral prin- 
ciples. Should this occur, it would endanger the future of China. 
It is therefore necessary for China to cast her lot with the Right. 

Courtesy of Chinese Minister 



THE GREAT CAUSE— STERLING 

INVOCATION 

JDECAUSE of the decision of a few, — 
Because in half a score of haughty minds 
The night lay black and terrible, thy winds, 

Europe ! are a stench on heaven's blue. 

Thy scars abide, and here is nothing new: 

Still from the throne goes forth the dark that blinds, 
And still the satiated morning finds 

The unending thunder and the bloody dew. 

Shall night be lord forever, and not light? 
Look forth, tormented nations ! Let your eyes 
Behold this horror that the few have done! 
Then turn, strike hands, and in your burning might 
Impel the fog of murder from the skies, 
And sow the hearts of Europe with the sun! 



^^Aj) u^tAx^Vtix LA 



Bohemian Club, San Francisco 
1915 



V 



10 DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY 

THE TEST 

IT HAS been my fortune to see something of the war with the 
army in France, and something also of what war means for 
those at home who, having sent out sons and brothers, are them- 
selves compelled to wait and watch. I have seen suffering be- 
yond imagination, pain, hardship and misery. I have seen 
anxiety and sorrow which I should have guessed beforehand men 
could not have borne without going mad. But I have also seen the 
human spirit rise to wonderful heights. Men and women have 
shown themselves greater, nobler, stronger than in the old days of 
peace I thought they could be. 

It would not be very astonishing if the strain of war had called 
forth a fresh greatness in those whose lives were already seen to 
be in some way great; in our leaders, our teachers, our thinkers. 
Or if an added nobility had appeared in our aristocracies of birth, 
intellect, education, wealth, or whatever other accidents set men 
above the mass of their fellows. Of such we expect a great re- 
sponse to a great demand. And we have not been disappointed. 
The old rule of life. Noblesse Oblige, has proved that it still pos- 
sesses driving force with the most of those to whom it applies. 
The thing which has amazed me is the greatness of the common 
man. 

This I in no way expected or looked for. I confess that, before 
the war, I was no believer in the great qualities of those who are 
called "the people." They seemed to me to be living lives either 
selfish, sometimes brutal, always sordid ; or else mean, narrow, and 
circumscribed by senseless conventions. I believed that society, 
if it progressed at all, would be forced forward by the few, that 
the many had not in them the qualities necessary for advance, were 



THE GREAT CAUSE— BIRMINGHAM 11 

incapable of the far visions which make advance desirable. I 
know now that I was wrong, and I have come to the faith that the 
hope of the future is in the common people who have shown them- 
selves great. 

So, I suppose, I may contribute to a book with such a title as 
'"The Defenders of Democracy." For now I am sure that democ- 
racy has promise and hope in it. Only I am not sure that democ- 
racy has even begun to understand itself. The common people 
have displayed virtues so great that those who have seen them 
unite in a chorus of praise. Their leaders, elected persons, guides 
chosen by votes and popular acclamation, have shown in a hun- 
dred ways that they will not, dare not, trust the people. Our silly 
censorships, our concealments of unpleasant truths, our suppres- 
sion of criticism, our galling infringements of personal liberty, 
witness to the fact that authority distrusts the source from which 
it sprang; that the leaders of our democracy reckon the common 
people unfit to know, to think or to act. If we are defending 
democracy we are sacrificing liberty. Will you, in America, do 
better in this respect than we have done? You believed in the 
common people before England did. You believe in them, if we 
may trust your words, more completely than England does. Do 
you believe in them sufficiently to trust them? Or do you think 
that democracy can be defended only after it has been blindfolded, 
hand-cuffed and gagged? This is what you have got to show the 
world. No one doubts that you can fight. No one doubts that 
you will fight, with all your strength, as England is fighting. What 
we wonder is whether your great principle of government, by the 
people and for the people, will stand the test of a war like this. 



12 DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY 

THE NEW COMRADESHIP 

DEMOCRACY is the outward and visible sign that a nation 
recognizes its own needs and aspirations. Democracy wells 
up from the very pit of things. Its value is its foundation in 
actuality, its concordance with the slow unending process of man's 
evolution from the animal he was. Democracy, for one with any 
comic and cosmic animal sense, is the only natural form of govern- 
ment, because alone it recognizes States as organisms, with spon- 
taneous growth, and a free will of their own. Democracy is final; 
other forms of government are but steps on the way to it. It is the 
big thing, because it can and does embody and make use of 
Aristocracy. It is the rule of the future, because all human prog- 
ress gradually tends to recognition of God in man, and not outside 
of him; to the establishment of the humanistic creed, and the 
belief that we have the future in our own hands. 

In life at large, whom does one respect — the man who gropes 
and stumbles upward to control of his instincts, and full develop- 
ment of his powers, confronting each new darkness and obstacle 
as it arises; or the man who shelters in a cloister, and lives by rote 
and rules hung up for him by another in his cell? The first man 
lives, the second does but exist. So it is with nations. 

The American and the Englishman are fundamentally demo- 
cratic because they are fundamentally self-reliant. Each demands 
to know why he should do a thing before he does it. This is, I 
think, the great link between two peoples in many ways very dif- 
ferent; and they who ardently desire abiding friendship between 
our two countries will do well never to lose sight of it. Any sap- 
ping of this quality of self-reliance, or judging for oneself, in either 
country, any undermining of the basis of democracy will imperil 



THE GREAT CAUSE— GALSWORTHY 13 

our new-found comradeship. You in America have before all 
things to fear the warping power of great Trusts; we in England 
to dread the paralyzing influence of Press groups. We have both 
to beware of the force which the pressure of a great war inevitably 
puts into the hands of Military Directorates. We are for the time 
being hardly democracies, even on the surface; the democratic 
machinery still exists, but is so ungeared by Censorship and Uni- 
versal Service, that probably it could not work even if it wanted to. 
We are now in the nature of business concerns, run by Directors 
safe in office till General Meetings, which cannot be held till after 
the War. But I am not greatly alarmed. When the War is over, 
the pendulum will swing back; the individual conscience which is 
our guarantee for democracy and friendship will come into its own 
again, and shape our destinies in common towards freedom and 
humanity. The English-speaking democracies, in firm union, can 
and ought to be the unshifting ballast of a better world. 



^/rk.Ka/uur^7i^ 



14 DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY 

QUESTIONINGS 

I HAVE a brilliant idea which, without any parade of modesty, 
I hereby commend to the notice of the American, French and 
British Governments. Let them get together as soon as may be 
and give us an authoritative definition of Democracy. Then we 
shall know where, collectively, we are. Of course you may say 
that it has been defined for all time by Abraham Lincoln. But 
thrilling in its clear simplicity as his slogan epigram may be, 
a complex political and social system cannot be fully dealt with 
in fifteen words. I thought I knew what it was until a tidy few 
millions of friends and myself were knocked silly by recent events 
in Russia. Here, where the privates of a regiment hold a mass 
meeting and discuss for hours an order to advance to the relief of 
sorely pressed comrades and decide not to obey it, and eventually 
throw down their rifles and with a mens conscia recti, proudly run 
away, we have Democracy with a vengeance. Not one of the 
Defenders of Democracy who are writing in this book would stand 
for it a second. Nor would they stand for the slobbering maniacs 
who yearn to throw themselves into the arms of the Germans, and, 
with the kiss of peace and universal brotherhood, kiss away their 
brothers' blood from their blood-smeared faces. Nor would they 
stand entirely for those staunch democrats who, inspired with a 
burning sense of human wrongs but with none of proportion or 
humor, would sacrifice vital interests of humanity in general for 
the transient amelioration of the lot of a particular section of the 
community. For years these visionaries told us that every penny 
spent on army or navy was a robbery of the working-man. We 
yielded him many pennies; but alas, they now have to be repaid in 
blood. 




"THE HAPPY WARRIORS" 



THE GREAT CAUSE— LOCKE 15 

America has joined the civilized world in the struggle against 
the surviving systems of medieval barbarism in Europe that have 
been permitted to exist under the veneer of civilization. She sees 
clearly what she has to destroy. So do we. No American and 
Englishman can meet but that they grip hands and thank God 
together that they are comrades in this Holy War. They are out, 
like Knights of Fable, to rid the earth of a pestilential monster; 
and they will not rest until their foot is on his slain monster's 
head. 

Which is, by Heaven! a glorious and soul-uplifting enterprise. 
In it the blood of the lowliest is as the blood of the Martyrs, rising 
to God. But with this difference: the Martyrs died for a con- 
structive scheme — that of Christianity. What is the construc- 
tive scheme for which we are dying? It is easy to say the 
Democratization of Mankind. It is a matter of common assent 
that this consummation is ardently desired by the Royal Family 
of England, by enlightened Indian Princes, by the philanthropists 
of America, by the French artist, by the Roumanian peasant, by 
the howling syndicalist in South Wales, by the Belgian socialist, 
by the eager soul in the frail body who is at the helm of storm- 
tossed Russia to-day, by the Montenegrin mountaineer, by the 
Sydney Larrikin yelling down conscription, by millions of units 
belonging to the civilized nations of such social and racial diver- 
gence that the mind is staggered by the conception of them all 
fighting under one banner. But are we sure they are all fighting 
for the same thing? If they're not, there will be the deuce to pay 
all over the terrestrial globe, even with a crushed Central European 
militarism. 

Therefore, with the same absence of modesty I cry for an author- 
itative crystallization of the democratic aims of the civilized world. 
England and France have groped their way through centuries 



16 DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY 

towards a vague ideal. America proudly began her existence 
by a proclamation of the equal rights of man. She proudly pro- 
claims them now; but the world is involved in such a complicated 
muddle, that the utterances of George Washington and Abraham 
Lincoln (to say nothing of their intellectual and political ancestor 
Jean Jacques Rousseau) require amplification. The political 
thought of the older nations of Europe is tired out. It is for the 
fresher genius of America to lead them towards the solution of 
the greatest problem which has ever faced mankind: — the final, 
constructive and all-satisfying definition of the myriadwise inter- 
preted word Democracy. 



/VY 




THE GREAT CAUSE— VAN DYKE 17 

DEMOCRACY IN PEACE AND WAR 

DEMOCRACY is by nature a lover of peace. That is the state 
which it regards as the normal condition of human life, and 
in which it seeks its best rewards and triumphs by the organiza- 
tion of the common effort of all citizens for the common welfare. 

But while democracy is pacific in its desires and aims, it is not 
a "pacifist." It is willing and able, though not always at the mo- 
ment ready, to take up arms in self-defense. In its broadening 
vision of a fraternity of mankind, which shall be in the good fu- 
ture not only intranational but also international, it is willing also 
to fight for the safety of its principles everywhere, and for the 
security of all the peoples in a true and orderly liberty. That is the 
position of the democracy of the United States of America to-day. 

As in peace, so in war, the success of the democratic effort de- 
pends upon the fulness of the cooperation between all classes and 
conditions of men and women. Those men who are fit for mili- 
tary service on land or sea must render it willingly and to the ut- 
most of their strength. Those who by reason of age or weakness 
cannot undertake that service without danger of becoming a bur- 
den to the fighting forces, must work to sustain the army and the 
fleet of freedom. "If any man will not work neither let him eat." 

The women also must do their part, since they are citizens just 
as much as the men. They must undertake those tasks of indus- 
try of which they are capable and thus relieve the need of labor in 
all fields. Above all they must give themselves to those 
tasks of mercy for which they have a natural aptitude. And 
through all they must give sympathy, inspiration, and courage to 
the men who fight for Liberty and Democracy. 



18 DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY 



SUNRISE OVER THE PERISTYLE 

"Ye shall know the truth, and 
the truth shall make you free." 

J_jOOK! we shall know the truth — it is thy word; 
The truth, Lord — shining, invincible, 
Unawed. And shall we love it, Lord, like this. 
This half -dark flushing with the wondrous hope? 
How can we love it more? 

Sweet is the hush 
Brimming the dim void world, soothing the beat 
Of the great-hearted lake that lies unlit 
Beyond that silver portal. Peace is here 
In moony palaces that rose for her 
Pale, lustrous — it is well with her to dwell. 
The truth — will not these phantom fabrics fail 
Under the fierce white fire — yes, float away 
Like mists that wanly rise and choke the wind? 

So merciless is truth — how shall we live 

And bear the glare? Now rosily smiles the earth, 

And bold young couriers climb the slope of heaven, 

With gaudy flags aflare. The towered clouds. 

Lofty, impregnable, are captured now — 

Their turrets flame with banners. Who abides 

Under the smooth wide rim of the worn world 

That the high heavens should hail him like a king — 

Even like a lover? If it be the Truth, 

Ah, shall our souls wake with the triumph. Lord? 



AN INTERLUDE— MONROE 19 

Shall we be free according to thy word, 
Brave to yield all? 

Look! will it come like this — 
A vivid glory burning at the gate 
Over the sudden verge of golden waves? 
The tall white columns stand like seraphim 
With high arms locked for song. The city lies 
Pearled like the courts of heaven, waiting the tread 
Of souls made wise with joy. Why should we fear? 
The Truth — ah, let it come to test the dream; 
Give us the Truth, Lord, that in its light 
The world may know thy will, and dare be free. 



20 DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY 

REMINISCENCES OF BOOTH 

FEW of the younger people of the present generation know, by 
personal experience, how nobly and incomparably Edwin 
Booth enriched the modem stage with his vivid portraitures of 
Shakespearean characters. The tragic fervor, the startling pas- 
sion, and the impressive dignity with which he invested his various 
roles, have not been equaled, I daresay, by any actor on the English 
speaking stage since the days of Garrick and Kean. He had a 
voice that vibrated with every mood, and a mien, despite his short 
stature, that gave a lofty dignity to every part that he played. But 
Booth as himself was a simple, modest, amiable human being. 
Many of us younger men came to know him in a personal way, 
when he established in New York City the Players' Club, which he 
dedicated to the dramatic profession, and which is now a splendid 
and permanent monument to his fame and generosity. 

I saw him frequently and had many chats with him. When 
I undertook the management of E. H. Sothem, he was very much 
interested because he knew young Sothern's father, the original 
Lord Dundreary; so, when Mr. Sothem appeared in the first play 
under my management, "The Highest Bidder," I invited Mr. Bootli 
to witness the performance. He expressed his delight at seeing 
his old friend's son doing such delightful work, and the three of us 
afterwards met at a little supper at the Players'. He told us that 
he came nearly being the Godfather of young Sothem, and that he 
was to have been called "Edwin" after himself; but the reason why 
his name was changed to "Edward," he explained, was as follows: 
When young Sothem was bom in New Orleans, the elder Sothem 
telegraphed Booth, asking him to stand as Godfather to his boy, 
but Booth did not wish to take the responsibility, doubtless for 



^lOCRA' r 



! generation know, by 
=ncomp<ira}.»iy r.^Jwin 
res of 
■ I . 11^' ■ ••> >i. .iiug pas- 
-' hiVi'?XeA his various 
on the English 
.8 of Garrick and Kean. He had a 
i'ViTy inood, ati'l a mien, d 
BALLET BY MOONLIGHT 
By Jules Gmr in . : i .. ; «, 

From the Original Painting 



■/y nuu;!! 

...c original 

die j&rst piay 

led Mr. Booth 

at seeing 

• 1 UVdl 



THE DRAMA^FROHMAN 21 

reasons of his own, and so his name was changed to "Edward"; 
but he confessed that it was a matter he greatly regretted. He told 
us many stories of his early career as an actor, one of which I 
remember as a very amusing experience on the part of the elder 
actor when on his way to Australia. Mr. Booth had an engage- 
ment to play in that distant section, and with five members, the 
nucleus of a company, started from San Francisco. They had 
occasion to stop at Honolulu en route. The stop there being longer 
than originally anticipated, and the news of his arrival having 
spread. King Kamehameha sent a request that he give a performance 
of "Richard HI" in the local theater. In spite of managerial diffi- 
culties, Booth (being then a young man, ardent and ambitious) 
sought to give a semblance with the scanty material at hand, of a 
fair performance. He had to secure the cooperation of members 
of the local amateur company. The best he was enabled to do for 
the part of Queen Elizabeth was an actor, short in stature, defec- 
tive in speech and accent, but earnest in temperament, whom he 
cast for this eminent role. The other parts were filled as best he 
could, and the principals with him enabled Mr. Booth to give some 
semblance of a decent performance. In order to properly adver- 
tise the event, he secured the assistance of several Hawaiians, and 
furnished them with a paste made out of their native product called 
"poi." He discovered later, to his amazement, that not a bill had 
been posted, and that the "poi," being a valuable food article, had 
been appropriated by the two individuals, who decamped. Mr. 
Booth, with his colleagues, then personally posted the town with the 
bills of the impending performance. On the evening the house 
was crowded. The King occupied a seat in the wings, there being 
no place for him in the hall. When the throne scene was to be 
set for the play, word was sent to His Majesty humbly asking 
the loan of the throne chair, which he then occupied, for use in the 



22 DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY 

scene — a favor which His Royal Highness readily granted. At 
the end of the performance, word was brought to Booth that the 
King wished to see him. Booth, shy and modest as he was, and 
feeling that he could not speak the language, or that His Royal 
Highness could not speak his, approached His Majesty timidly. 
The latter stepped forward, slapped the actor heartily on the back 
and said: "Booth, this is as fine a performance as I saw your 
father give twenty years ago." 

The question as to whether an actor should feel his part or control 
his emotions, has been an argument which has interested the dra- 
matic profession for many years, since it was first promulgated by 
the French writer Diderot, and afterwards ably discussed by Henry 
Irving and Coquelin. Of course, we all feel that no matter how 
violent the actor's stress of emotion is, he must control his re- 
sources with absolute restraint and poise. Sometimes, however, 
an actor feels he is under the sway of his part in an unusual degree 
and comes to the conviction, through his excitement, that he has 
given a greater performance than usual. So Booth, one night at 
his own theater, seeing his beloved daughter in a box, and desiring 
to impress her with his work, played with, as he felt, a degree of 
emotion that made him realize that he had given an unusually 
powerful interpretation. At the end of the play, his daughter ran 
back to him and said: "Why, dad, what is the matter with you?" 
And Booth, awaiting her approval, said: "Matter?" "Why you 
gave the worst performance I ever witnessed," she said. This con- 
trol of one's resources and the check upon one's feelings was indi- 
cated at another time during a performance of Booth, of "Riche- 
lieu," as told to me by the actor's friend, the late Laurence Hutton, 
the writer. Mr. Hutton and Mr. Booth were sitting in the latter's 
dressing room at Booth's Theater. Booth was, as usual, smoking 
his beloved pipe. When he heard his cue, he arose, and walked 



THE DRAMA— FROHMAN 23 

with Hutton to the prompter's entrance, where, giving his pipe to 
his friend, said: "Larry, will you keep the pipe going until I 
come off?" Booth entered on the scene; then came the big mo- 
ment in the play when the nobles and the weak King had assembled 
to defy the power of the Cardinal; and Richelieu launches (as 
Booth always did with thrilling effect) the terrifying curse of Rome 
— a superb bit of oratorical eloquence. At the conclusion, the 
house shouted its wild and demonstrative approval, and when the 
curtain dropped on this uproar for the last time. Booth approached 
Hutton at the prompter's entrance saying, in his usual quiet voice: 
"Is the pipe still going, Larry?" 

No actor we have ever known has inspired so much genuine affec- 
tion — I may say almost idolatry — as the simple Edwin Booth 
aroused in the hearts of his friends and his fellow-workers. In 
the beautiful Players' Club House, which he bequeathed to the 
dramatic profession, he presented also his own valuable theatrical 
library, numbering several thousand memorable works on the 
stage ; and no one event greater than this gift to his fellow-players 
has ever occurred in the dramatic profession. 



24 DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY 



GOD OF MY FAITH 

A Play for Pacifists 
IN One Act 

"// the God of my Faith be a liar 
IF ho is it that I shall trust?" 

THE PEOPLE IN THE PLAY 

Nelson Dartrey 
Dermod Gilruth 

The action passes in Dartrey's Chambers in the late Spring of 
Nineteen Hundred and Fifteen. 

{The lowering of the Curtain momentarily will denote the passing of several days.) 



THE DRAMA— MANNERS 25 



GOD OF MY FAITH 

The curtain discloses a dark oak room. 

Nelson Dartrey is seated at a writing table studying maps. He is a man in the 
early thirties, prematurely worn and old. His face is burned a deep brick color 
and is sharpened by fatigue and loss of blood. His hair is sparse, dry and turning 
gray. Around the upper part of his head is a bandage covered largely by a black 
skull-cap. Of over average height the man is spare and muscular. The eye is keen 
and penetrating; his voice abrupt and authoritative. An occasional flash of humor 
brings an old-time twinkle to the one and heartiness to the other. He is wearing the 
undress uniform of a major in the British army. 

The door bell rings. 

With an impatient ejaculation he goes into the passage and opens the outer door. 
Standing outside cheerfully humming a tune is a large, forceful, breezy young man of 
twenty-eight. He is Dermod Gilruth. Splendid in physique, charming of manner, 
his slightly-marked Dublin accent lends a piquancy to his conversation. He has all 
the ease and poise of a traveled, polished young man of breeding. Dartrey's face 
brightens as he holds out a welcoming hand. 

DARTREY 
Hello, Gil. 

GILRUTH 

(Saluting him as he laughs genially) 

May I come into officers' quarters? 

DARTREY 

I'm glad to have you. I'm quite alone with hours on my hands. 

{He brings Gilruth into the room and wheels a comfortable leather arm chair 
in front of him) 

Sit down. 

GILRUTH 

Indeed I will not. Look at your desk there. I'll not interrupt 
your geography for more than a minute. 

DARTREY 

(Forces him into the chair) 

I'm glad to get away from it. Why, you look positively boyish. 



26 DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY 

GILRUTH 

And why not? I am a boy. 

(Chuckles) 

DARTREY 

What are you so pleased with yourself about? 

GILRUTH 

The greatest thing in the world for youth and high-spirits. I'm 
going to be married next week. 

DARTREY 

(Incredulously) 

You're not? 
I tell you I am. 
Don't be silly. 
What's silly about it? 
Oh, I don't know. 

GILRUTH 

Of course you don't know. You've never tried it. 

DARTREY 

I should think not. 

GILRUTH 

Well, I'm going to and I want you to father me. Stand up beside 
me and see me through. Will you? 

DARTREY 

If you want me to. 



GILRUTH 



DARTREY 



GILRUTH 



DARTREY 



THE DRAMA— MANNERS 27 

GILRUTH 

Well, I do want you to. 

DARTREY 

All right. 

GILRUTH 

You don't mind now? 

DARTREY 

My dear chap. It's charming of you to think of me. 

GILRUTH 

I've known you longer than any one over here. And I like you 
better. So there you are. 

DARTREY 

{Laughing) 

Poor old Dermod! Well, well! 

GILRUTH 

There's nothing to laugh at, or "well, well" about. 

DARTREY 

Do I know the — ? 

GILRUTH 

(Shakes his head) 

She's never been over before. Everything will be new to her. 
I tell you it's going to be wonderful. I've planned out the 
most delightful trip through Ireland — she's Irish, too. 

DARTREY 

Is she? 

GILRUTH 

But, like me, bom in America. She's crazy to see the old country. 



28 DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY 

DARTREY 

She couldn't have a better guide. 

GILRUTH 

(Enthusiastically) 

She's beautiful, she's brilliant: she's good — she's everything a man 
could wish. 

DARTREY 

That's the spirit. Will you make your home over here? 

GILRUTH 

No. We'll stay till the autumn. Then I must go back to America. 
But some day when all this fighting is over and people talk 
of something besides killing each other I want to have a home 
in Ireland. 

DARTREY 

I suppose most of you Irishmen in America want to do that? 

GILRUTH 

Indeed they do not. Once they get out to America and do well 
they stay there and become citizens. My father did. Do you 
think he'd live in Ireland now? Not he. He talks all the 
time about Ireland and the hated Sassenachs — that's what 
he calls you English — and he urges the fellows at home in 
the old country to fight for their rights. But since he made 
his fortune and became an American citizen the devil a foot 
has he ever put on Irish soil. He's always going, but he 
hasn't got there yet. And as for living there? Oh, no, 
America is good enough for him, because his interests are 
there. I want to live in Ireland because my heart is there. 
So was my poor mother's. 



THE DRAMA— MANNERS 29 

(Springing up) 

Now I'm off. You don't know how happy you make me by 
promising to be my best man. 

DARTREY 

My dear fellow — 

GILRUTH 

And just wait until you see her. Eyes you lose yourself in. A 
voice soft as velvet. A brain so nimble that wit flows like 
music from her tongue. Poetry too. She dances like thistle- 
down and sings like a thrush. And with all that she's in love 
with me. 

DARTREY 

I'm delighted. 

GILRUTH 

I want her to meet you first. A snug little dinner before the wed- 
ding. She's heard so much against the English I want her to 
see the best specimen they've got. 

(Dartrey laughs heartily) 

I tell you if you pass muster with her you have the passport to 
Kingdom Come. 

(Laughing as well as he grips Dartrey's hand) 

Good-by. 

DARTREY 

(As they walk to the door) 

When will it be? 

GILRUTH 

Next Tuesday. I'll ring you up and give you the full particulars. 

DARTREY 

In church? 



30 DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY 

GILRUTH 

Church! Cathedral! His Eminence will officiate. 

DARTREY 

Topping. 

GILRUTH 

Well, you see, we Irish only marry once. So we make an occasion 
of it. 

DARTREY 

Splendid. I'll look forward to it. 

GILRUTH 

(Looking at the bandage) 

Is your head getting all right? 

DARTREY 

Oh, dear, yes. It's quite healed up. I'll have this thing off in 
a day or two. 

(Touching the bandage) 

I expect to be back in a few weeks. 

GILRUTH 

(Anxiously) 

Again? 

DARTREY 

Yes. 

GILRUTH 

If ever a man had done his share, you have. 

DARTREY 

They need me. They need us all. 

GILRUTH 

The third time. 



THE DRAMA— MANNERS 31 

DARTREY 

There are many who have done the same. 

GILRUTH 

(Shudders) 

How long will it last? 

DARTREY 

Until the Hun is beaten. 

GILRUTH 

Years, eh? 

DARTREY 

It looks like it. We've hardly begun yet. It will take a year to 
really get the ball rolling. Then things will happen. Tell 
me. How do they feel in America? Frankly. 

GILRUTH 

All the people who matter are pro-Ally. 

DARTREY 

Are you sure? 

GILRUTH 

I'm positive. 

Are you? Come, now. 

Why, of course I am. 

DARTREY 

They may be pro-Ally, but they're not pro-English. 

GILRUTH 

That's true. Many of them are not. But if ever the test comes, 
they will be. 



DARTREY 



GILRUTH 



32 DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY 

DARTREY 

(Shakes his head doubtfully) 

I wonder. It seems a pity not to bury all the Bunker-Hill and 
Boston-tea-chest prejudices. 

GILRUTH 

You're right there. 

DARTREY 

Why your boys and girls are taught in their school-books to hate us. 

GILRUTH 

In places they are. Now that I know the English a little I have 
been agitating to revise them. It all seems so damned cheap 
and petty for a big country to belittle a great nation through 
the mouth of children. 

DARTREY 

There's no hatred like family hatred. After all we're cousins, 
speaking the same tongue and with pretty much the same 
outlook. 

GILRUTH 

There's one race in America that holds back as strongly as it can 
any better understanding between the two countries, and that's 
my race — the Irish. And well I know it. I was brought up 
on it. There are men to-day, men of position too, in our big 
cities who have openly said they want to see England crushed 
in this war. 

DARTREY 

So I've heard. It would be a sorry day for the rest of civilization, 
and particularly America, if we were. 



THE DRAMA— MANNERS 33 

GILRUTH 

You can't convince them of that. They carry on the prejudices and 
hatred of generations. I have accused some of them of being 
actively pro-German; of tinkering with German money to 
foster revolution in Ireland. 

DARTREY 

Do you believe that? 

GILRUTH 

I do. Thank God there are not many of them. I have accused 
them of taking German money and then urging the poor un- 
fortunate poets and dreamers to do the revolting while they 
are safely three thousand miles away. I don't know of many 
who are willing to cross the water and do it themselves. Talk- 
ing and writing seditious articles is safe. Take my own 
father. He says frankly that he doesn't want Germany to 
win because he hates Germans. Most Irishmen do. Besides 
they've done my father some very dirty tricks. But all the 
same he wants to see England lose. All the doubtful ones I 
know, who don't dare come out in the open, speak highly of 
the French and are silent when English is mentioned. I 
blame a great deal of that on your Government. You take no 
pains to let the rest of the world know what England is doing. 
You and I know that without the British fleet America wouldn't 
rest as easy as she does to-day, and without the little British 
army the Huns would have been in Paris and Calais months 
ago. We know that, and so do many others. But the great 
mass of the people, particularly the Irish, cry all the time, 
"What is England doing?" Your government should see to 
it that they know what she's doing. 



34 DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY 

DARTREY 

It's not headquarters' way. 

GILRUTH 

I know it isn't. And the more's the pity. Another thing where 
you went all wrong. Why not have let Asquith clear up the 
Irish muddle? Why truckle to a handful of disloyal North 
of Ireland traitors? If the Government had court martialed 
the ring-leaders, tried the rest for treason and put the Irish 
Government in Dublin, why, man, three-quarters of the male 
population of the South of Ireland would be in the trenches 
now. 

DARTREY 

Don't let us get into that. I was one of the officers who mutinied. 
I would rather resign my commission than shoot down loyal 
subjects. 

GILRUTH 

(Hotly) 

Loyal? Loyal! When they refused to carry out their Govern- 
ment's orders? When they deny justice to a long suffering 
people? Loyal! Don't prostitute the word. 

DARTREY 

(Angrily) 

I don't want to — 

GILRUTH 

(Going on vehemently) 

It's just that kind of pig-headed ignorance that has kept the two 
countries from understanding each other. Why shouldn't Ire- 
land govern herself. South Africa does. Australia does. 
And when you're in trouble they leap to your flag. Yet there 
is a country a few miles from you that sends the best of her 
people to your professions and they invariably get to the top 



THE DRAMA— MANNERS 35 

of them. Irishmen have commanded your armies and Ire- 
land has given you admirals for your fleet and at least one of 
us has been your Lord Chief Justice. Yet, by God, they can't 
be trusted to govern themselves. I tell you the English treat- 
ment of Ireland makes her the laughing-stock of the world. 

DARTREY 

{Opens the door, then turns and looks straight at Gilruth) 

My head bothers me. Will you kindly — 

GILRUTH 

(All contrition) 

I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to blaze out. Do forgive me like a 
good fellow. It's an old sore of mine and sometimes it makes 
me wince. It did just now. Don't be mad with me. 

(The sound of a boy's voice calling newspapers is heard faintly m the distance; 
then the hoarse tones of a man shouting indistinctly; then a chorus of men 
and boys comes nearer and nearer calling of some calamity. Dartrey hurries 
out through the outer door. Gilruth stands ashamed. He does not want to 
leave his friend in bad blood. He would like to put things right before going. 
He waits for Dartrey to come back. 

In a few moments Dartrey walks through the outer doorway and into the room. 
He is very white, very agitated and his face is set and determined. He is 
reading a special edition of an evening paper with great "scare" head lines. 

The sound of the voices crying the news in the street groivs fainter and fainter. 

Dartrey stops in front of Gilruth and tries to speak; nothing coherent comes 
from his lips. He thrusts the paper into GilrutKs hands and watches his 
face as he reads. 

Gilruth reads it once slowly, then rapidly. He stands immovable staring at the 
news-sheet. It slips from his fingers and he cowers down, stooping at the 
shoulders, glaring at the floor.) 

DARTREY 

(Almost frenzied) 

Now will your country come in? Now will they fight for civiliza- 
tion? A hundred of her men, women and children done to 
death. Is that war? Or is it murder? Already men are 
reading in New York and Washington of the sinking of that 



36 DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY 

ship and the murder of their people. What are they going 
to do? What are you going to do? 

GILRUTH 

[Creeps unsteadily to the door; standing himself with a hand on the lock; his 
back is to the room. He speaks in a strange, far-off, quavering voice) 

She was on the Lusitania! Mona. She was on it. Mona was 
on it. 

{Creeps out through the street door and disappears) 

(Dartrey looks after him) 

{The curtain falls and rises again in a few moments. Several days have elapsed. 
Dartrey, in full uniform, is busily packing his regimental kit. The bandage 
has been removed from his head. The telephone bell rings. Dartrey answers 
it) 

DARTREY 

Yes. Yes. Who is it? Oh! Do. Yes. No. Not at all. 
Come up. All right. 

{Replaces the receiver and continues packing) 

{In a few moments the door-bell rings. Dartrey opens the outer door and brings 
GiLRUTH into the room. He is in deep mourning; is very white and broken. 
He seems grievously ill. Dartrey looks at him commiseratingly. He is sensi- 
tive about speaking) 

GILRUTH 

{Faintly) 

Put up with me for a bit? Will you? 

{Dartrey fust puts his hand on the man's shoulder) 
{Gilruth sinks wearily and lifelessly into a chair) 

She is buried. 

DARTREY 

What? 

GILRUTH 

{Nods) 

She is buried. In Kensal Green. Half an hour ago. 

DARTREY 

(In a whisper) 

They found her? 



THE DRAMA— MANNERS 37 

GILRUTH 

{Nods again) 

Picked up by some fishermen. 

DARTREY 

Queenstown? 

GILRUTH 

A few miles outside. I went there that night and stayed there until 
— until she — they found her. 

{Covers his face. Dartrey puts his arm around him and presses his shoulder) 

I wandered round there for days. Wasn't so bad while it 
was light. People to talk to. All of us on the same er- 
rand. Searching. Searching. Searching. Hoping — some 
of them. I didn't. I knew from the first. I knew. It was 
horrible at night alone. I had to try and sleep sometimes. 
They'd wake me when the bodies were brought in. Hers 
came toward dawn one morning. Three little babies, all 
twined in each others arms, lying next to her. Three little 
babies. Cruel that. Wasn't it? 

{Waits as he thinks; then he goes on dully; evenly, with no emotion) 

Fancy! She'd been out in that water for days and nights. All 
alone. Tossed about. Days and nights. She! who'd never 
hurt a soul. Couldn't. She was always laughing and happy* 
Drifting about. All alone. Quite peaceful she looked. 
Except — except — 

{Covers his eyes and groans. In a little while he looks up at Dartrey and 
touches his left eye) 

This. Gone. Gulls. 

(Dartrey draws his breath in sharply and turns a little away) 

In a few hours the cuts opened. The salt-water had kept them 
closed. 



38 DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY 

DARTREY 

Cuts? 

GILRUTH 

(Nods) 

Her head. And her face. Cuts. Blood after all that time. 

(He clenches and unclenches his hands nervously and furiously. He gets up 
slowly, walks over to the fireplace, shivers, then braces himself trying to shake 
off the horror of his thoughts. Then he begins to speak brokenly and trem- 
blingly endeavoring to moisten his lips with a dry tongue) 

Never saw anything to equal the kindness of those poor peasants. 
They gave the clothes from their bodies; the blankets from 
their beds. And took nothing. Not a thing. "We're all in 
this," they said. "We're doing our best, it's little enough." 
That's what they said. Pretty fine the Irish of Queenstown. 
Eh? 

(Dartrey nods. He does not trust himself to speak) 

A monument. That's what the Irish peasants of Queenstown 
should have. A monument. Never slept, some of them. 
Wrapped the soaking women in their shawls — and the little 
children. Took off their wet things and gave them dry, warm 
ones. Fed them with broths they cooked themselves. Spent 
their poor savings on brandy for them. Stripped the clothes 
off their own backs for them to travel in when they were well 
enough to go. And wouldn't take a thing. Great people the 
Irish of Queenstown. Nothing much the matter with them. 
A monument. That's what they should have. And poetry. 

(Thinks for a while, then goes on) 

Laid out the bodies too; just as reverently as if they were their own 
people. They laid her out. And prayed over her. And 

watched with me over her until she was put into the . 

Such a tiny little shell it was, too. She had no father or 
mother or brothers or sisters. I was all she had. That's 



THE DRAMA^MANNERS 39 

why I buried her here. Kensal Green. She'll rest easy 
there. 

(He walks about distractedly. Suddenly he stops and with his hands extended 
upwards as if in prayer, he cries) 

Out of my depths I cry to Thee. I call on you to curse them. 
Curse the Prussian brutes made in Your likeness, but with 
hearts as the lowest of beasts. Curse them. May their 
hopes wither. May everything they set their hearts on rot. 
Send them pestilence, disease and every foul torture they 
have visited on Your people. Send the Angel of Death to rid 
the earth of them. May their souls bum in hell for all 
eternity 

(Quickly to Dartrey) 

and if there is a god they will. But is there a good God that 
such things can be and yet no sign from Him? Listen. I 
didn't believe in war. I reasoned against it. I shouted for 
Peace. And thousands of cravens like me. I thought God 
was using this universal slaughter for a purpose. When His 
end was accomplished He would cry to the warring peoples 
"Stop!" It was His will, I thought, that out of much evil 
might come permanent good. That was my faith. It has 
gone. How can there be a good God to look down on His 
people tortured and maimed and butchered? The women, 
whose lives were devoted to Him, defiled. His temples 
looted, filled with the filth of the soldiery, and then destroyed. 
And yet no sign. Oh, no. My faith is gone. Now I want 
to murder and torture and massacre the foul brutes. . . . I'm 
going out, Dartrey. In any way. Just a private. I'll dig, 
carry my load, eat their rations. Vermin: mud: ache in the 
cold and scorch in the heat. I will welcome it. Anything to 
stop the gnawing here, and the throbbing here. 



40 DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY 

{Beating at his head and heart) 

Anything to find vent for my hatred. 

(Moving restlessly about) 

I'm going through Ireland first. Every town and village. It's 
our work now. It's Irishmen's work. All the Catholics will 
be in now. No more "conscientious-objecting." They can't. 
It's a war on women and little children. All right. No Irish- 
Catholic will rest easy ; eat, sleep and go his days round after 
this. The call has gone out. America too. She'll come in. 
You watch. She can't stay out. She's founded on Liberty. 
She'll fight for it. You see. It's clean against unclean. 
Red blood against black filth. Carrion. Beasts. Swine. 

(Drops into a chair mumbling incoherently. Takes a long breath; looks at 
Dartrey) 

I'm selling out everything back home. 

DARTREY 

Why? 

GILRUTH 

I'm not going back. I'm bringing everything over here. Eng- 
land, France, Russia, Belgium, Serbia — they can have it. All 
of it. They've suffered. Only now do I know how much. 
Only now. 

(Fiercely) 

I want to tear them — tear them as they've torn me. As they 
mangled her. 

(Grits his teeth and claws with his fingers) 

Tear them — that's what I want to do. May I live to do it. May 
the war never end until every dirty Prussian is rotting in his 
grave. Then a quick end for me, too. I've nothing now. 
Nothing. 

(Gets up again wearily and dejectedly; all the blazing passion burnt out mo- 
mentarily) 



THE DRAMA— MANNERS 41 

This was to have been my wedding-day; our wedding-day. Now 
she's lying there, done to death by Huns. A few days ago 
all youth and freshness and courage and love. Lying dis- 
figured in her little coffin. I know what you meant now by 
wanting to go back for the third time. I couldn't understand 
it the other day. It seemed that every one should hate war. 
But you've seen them. You know them. And you want to 
destroy them. That's it. Destroy. . . . The call is all over 
the world by now. Civilization will be in arms. ... To hell 
with your Pacifists. It's another name for cowards. They'd 
lose those nearest them: the honor of their women; the liberty 
of their people — and never strike a blow. To hell with them. 
It's where they should be. I was one of them. No more. 
Wherever I meet them I'll spit in their faces. They disgrace 
the women they were born of; the country they claim. . . . 
To hell with them. 

DARTREY 

(Tries to soothe him) 

You must try and get some grip on yourself. 

GILRUTH 

(His fingers ceaselessly locking and unlocking) 

I'll be all right. It's a relief to talk to you. 

(Sees the preparations for Dartrey's departure) 

Are you off? 

DARTREY 

Yes. To-night. 

GILRUTH 

I envy you now. I wish I were going. But I will soon. Ireland 
first. I must have my say there. What will the "Sinn Fein- 
ers" say to the Lusitania murder? I want to meet some of 



42 DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY 

them. What are our wrongs of generations to this horror? 
All humanity is at stake here. I'll talk to them. I must. 
They'll have to do something now or go down branded through 
the generations as Pro-German. Can a man have a worse 
epitaph? No decent Irishman will bear that; every loyal 
Irishman must loathe them. . . . I'll talk to them — soul to 
soul. . . . Sorry, Dartrey. You have your own sorrow. 
. . . Good of you to put up with me. Now I'll go. . . . 

{Goes to door, stops, takes out wallet) 

Just one thing. If it won't bother you. 

(Tapping some papers) 

I've mentioned you here. ... If I don't come through — see to a 
few things for me. Will you? They're not much. Will 



you? 



Of course I will. 



DARTREY 



GILRUTH 

(Simply) 

Thank you. You've always been decent to me. . . . Dartrey. 
To-day! You would have been my best man — and she's — 

DARTREY 

(Shaking him by the shoulders) 

Come, my man. Pull up. 

GILRUTH 

I will. I'll be all right. In a little while I'll be along out there. 
I hope I serve under you. 

(Grips his hand) 
Good-by. 

DARTREY 
Keep in touch with me. 



THE DRAMA—MANNERS 



43 



GILRUTH 

All right. 

{Passes out, opens and closes the outer door behind him and disappears in the 
street. Dartrey resumes his preparations) 

THE END OF THE PLAY 




44 DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY 

TO FRANCE 

FOR THE third time in history it has fallen to the lot of France 
to stem the Barbarian tide. Once before upon the Mame, 
-Stius with a Gallic Army stopped the Hun under Attila. Three 
hundred years later Charles Martel at Tours saved Europe from 
becoming Saracen, just as in September, 1914, more than eleven 
centuries later. General Joffre with the citizen soldiery of France 
upon that same Mame saved Europe from the heel of the Prus- 
sianized Teuton, the reign of brute force and the religion of the 
Moloch State. These were among the world's "check battles." 
Yet the flood of barbarism was only checked at the Marne, not 
broken; again the flood arose and pressed on to be stopped once 
more at Verdun — the Gateway of France — in the greatest of human 
conflicts yet seen. 

America was a spectator, but not an indiff^erent one. Once again 
mere momentary material interest counseled abstention; precedent 
was invoked to justify isolation and indiff"erence. The timid, the 
ignorant, the disloyal, those to whom physical life was more pre- 
cious than the dictates of conscience, counseled "peace and pros- 
perity." Many began to wonder if America had a soul and was 
indeed worth saving as the policy of "Terrorism" on land followed 
that of "Terrorism" on the high seas seemed to leave us indiff"erent. 
Yet the same spirit, as of yore, dominated the nation. The people 
of America at last understood that it was not any particular rule of 
law, but the existence of law itself, divine and human, that was 
involved in the Fate of France. 

The task confronting this nation is a stupendous one. Let there 
be no illusion. The war may well be long and painful, beyond 
expression, but the past few weeks have taught us that the nation 



\ I'll' 



\ 



MARSHAL JOFFRE 

From the Original Drmving 



FRANCE— COUDERT 45 

will bear the strain with that same courage and enduring persever- 
ance as in the past, following the example of the Fathers and in- 
spired by the traditions of the American Revolution, this people 
will stand like a stone wall with our splendid Ally of old and of 
to-day — France — and from Great Britain from whence came our 
institutions, to end forever the Hohenzollem system of blood and 
iron so that a better future may come to Europe and America, one 
in which peace may be builded upon a guaranty of justice and law 
— a world order in which fundamental moral postulates and 
human rights may never again be set at defiance at the behest of 
mere material force, however scientifically organized. 

To France has fallen the honor of checking, to Britain the bur- 
den of containing by sea and land, to America now comes the duty 
of finally overthrowing that common enemy of democratic insti- 
tutions and ordered liberty, the foe whose morality knows no ruth, 
whose philosophy admits no check upon the "will to power." 

In France the traveler passing along the roads to the northeast 
leading to Lorraine may see at every cross-road a great index finger 
pointing to the single word VERDUN. To many thousands, nay, 
hundreds of thousands of men passing over these roads in the five 
fateful months of critical battle, these six letters spelled mutilation 
and death, yet the word was an inspiration to heroism in every 
home of France, and from every comer of the land men followed 
that great index finger pointing, as it did indeed, to the modern 
Calvary. 

To-day at every cross-road must we here in America set up a 
great index hand with the words "TO FRANCE." To France, 
land of suffering humanity, in whose devastated fields again must 
be saved the same principles for which Americans fought at Bun- 
ker Hill, at Saratoga, at Yorktown, at Gettysburg and in the Wilder- 
ness; to France, where the fate of the world is still pending; to 



46 DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY 

France, which has again checked the Huns of the modem world as 
it did those of the ancient; to France, the manhood of this nation 
must now be directed, to save the heritage of the American Revolu- 
tion and the Civil War, to preserve the dearest conquests of the 
Christian civilization; to France will our men go by the thousands, 
hundreds of thousands, if need be by the million, to prove that the 
soul of America is more completely intent upon battling for the 
right than ever before, intent that slavery in another but far subtler 
and more dangerous form may not prevail upon the earth. 

It was Washington who gave as the watchword of the day in those 
soul-trying hours that preceded the birth of our nation the immortal 
and prophetic phrase, "America and France — United Forever." 



FRANCE— ANATOLE FRANCE 47 

CE QUE DISENT NOS MORTS 

IL n'est pas besoin de rappeler le souvenir de ceux qui nous 
furent chers et ne sont plus, a notre peuple qui passe, non sans 
raison, pour celebrer avec ferveur le culte des morts. N'est-ce 
pas en France, au dix-neuvieme siecle, qu'est nee cette philosophic 
qui met au rang des premiers devoirs de I'homme la reconnais- 
sance envers les generations qui nous ont precedes dans la tombe, 
en nous laissant le fruit de leurs pensees et de leurs travaux? 
Certes le religion des ancetres est de tous les temps et de tous les 
climats; elle est meme chez certains peuples orientaux la religion 
unique; mais en quel pays les liens entre les morts et les vivants 
sont-ils plus forts qu'en France, les deuils plus solennels a la fois 
et plus intimes? Chez nous, d'ordinaire, les defunts aimes et 
veneres ne quittent pas tout entiers le foyer oil ils vecu; ils y 
respirent dans le coeur de ceux qui demeurent; ils y sont imites, 
consultes, ecoutes. 

Je me rappelle trop confusement pour en faire usage ici une 
scene tres belle d'une vieille chanson de geste, Girart de Rous- 
sillon, je crois, ou I'on voit une fille de roi contempler, la nuit, 
apres une bataille, la plaine oil gisent les guerriers innombrables 
tomber pour sa querelle. "Elle eut voulu, dit le poete, les 
embrasser tous." Et, du fond de mes tres lointains souvenirs, 
cette royale fille m'apparait comme une image de notre France 
pleurant aujourd'hui la fleur de sa race abondamment moissonnee. 

Aussi n'est-ce pas pour exhorter mes concitoyens a commemorer 
en ce jour nos morts selon un usage immemorial, que j'ecris ces 
lignes, mais pour honorer avec notre peuple tout entier ceux qui 
lui ont sacrifie leur vie et pour mediter la legon qu'ils nous 
donnent du fond de leur demeures profondes. 



48 DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY 

Et tout d'abord, a la memoire des notres, associons pieusement 
la memoire des braves qui ont verse leur sang sous tous les 
etendards de TAlliance, depuis les canaux de I'Yser jusqu'aux rives 
de la Vistule, depuis les montagnes du Frioul jusqu'aux defiles de 
la Morava, et sur les vastes mers. 

Puis, ofFrons les fleurs les plus ardentes et les plus nobles palmes 
aux innocentes victimes d'une atroce cruaute, aux femmes, aux 
entants martyrs, a cette jeune infirmiere anglaise, coupable seule- 
ment de generosite et dont I'assassinat a souleve d'indignation 
tout I'univers. 

Et nos morts, nos morts bien aimes! Que la patrie reconnais- 
sante ouvre assex grand son coeur pour les contenir tous, les plus 
humbles comme les plus illustres, les heros tombes avec gloire a 
qui Ton prepare des monuments de marbre et de bronze et qui 
vivront dans Fhistoire, et les simples qui rendirent leur dernier 
souffle en pensant au champ paternal. 

Que tous ceux dont le sang coula pour la patrie soient benis! 
lis n'ont pas fait en vain le sacrifice de leur vie. Glorieusement 
frappes en Artois, en Champagne, en Argonne, ils ont arrete 
I'envahisseur qui n'a pu faire un pas de plus en avant sur la terre 
sacree qui les recouvre. Quelques-uns les pleurent, tous les ad- 
mirent, plus d'un les envie. Ecoutons les. Tendons I'oreille: ils 
parlent. Penchons-nous sur cette terre bouleversee par la mitraille 
ou beaucoup d'entre eux dorment dans leurs vetements ensanglan- 
tes. Agenouillons-nous dans le cimetiere, au bords des tombes 
fleuries de ceux qui sont revenus dans le doux pays, et la, entendons 
le souffle imperceptible et puissant qu'ils melent, la nuit, au mur- 
mure du vent et au bruissement des feuilles qui tombent. Ef- 
forQons-nous de comprendre leur parole sainte. Ils disent: 

Freres, vivez, combattez, achevez notre ouvrage. Apportez la 
victoire et la paix a nos ombres consolees. Chassez I'etranger qui 



FRANCE— ANATOLE FRANCE 49 

a deja recule devant nous, et ramenez vos charrues dans les champs 
que nous avons imbibes de notre sang. 

Ainsi parlent nos morts. Et ils disent encore: 

Francais, aimez-vous les uns les autres d'un amour fraternel et, 
pour prevaloir contre I'ennemi, mettez en commun vos biens et 
vos pensees. Que parmi vous les plus grands et les plus forts 
soient les serviteurs des faibles. Ne marchandez pas plus vos 
richesses que votre sang a la patrie. Soyez tous egaux par la bonne 
volonte. Vous le devez a vos morts. 

Vous nous devez d'assurer, a notre exemple, par le sacrifice de 
vous-memes, le triomphe de la plus sainte des causes. Freres, 
pour payer votre dette envers nous, il vous faut vaincre, et il vous 
f aut f aire plus encore : il vous faut meriter de vaincre. 

Nos morts nous ordonnent de vivre et de combattre en citoyens 
d'un peuple libre, de marcher resolument dans I'ouragan de fer 
vers la paix qui se levera comme une belle aurore sur I'Europe 
affranchie des menaces de ses tyrans, et verra renaitre, faibles et 
timides encore, la justice et l'humanite etouffees par le crime 
de I'Allemagne. 

Voila ce qu'inspirent nos morts a un Frangais que le detache- 
ment des vanites et le progres de I'age rapprochent d'eux. 



^^^y^py^ft^&vcJfrc^ 




50 DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY 

WHAT OUR DEAD SAY TO US 

THERE is no need to recall to the minds of our people those 
who were dear to us and have passed hence, for they are 
celebrating — and with good cause — the anniversaries of their 
deaths. Was it not in France, in the 19th century, that there was 
born that philosophy which placed in the rank of the foremost 
duties of mankind gratitude towards those generations who have 
preceded us to the grave, and have left us the fruits of their 
thoughts and of their labors? Indeed, ancestral worship prevails 
in all climes and at all periods; in fact, with certain Oriental na- 
tions it is the only religion. But in what country is the link be- 
tween the dead and the living so strong as it is in France — the rites 
at the same time so solemn and so intimate? With us, as a rule, 
our dead, beloved and venerated, never entirely depart from the 
homes in which they have dwelt, but take up their abode in the 
hearts of the living who imitate them, consult them, pay heed to 
them. 

I recollect, too vaguely to make full use of it here, a beautiful 
scene from the heroic song, "Girart de Roussillon," I think it is, 
where one is shown a king's daughter, one night after a battle, 
gazing across the battlefield where lay the innumerable warriors 
who had fallen in the fight. "She felt a desire," said the poet, "to 
embrace them all." And from the depths of my far-away mem- 
ories this apparition of the daughter of a royal house arises before 
me as an image of our France to-day, weeping for the flower of our 
race so abundantly cut down. 

My object in writing these lines is not to exhort my fellow-citi- 
zens to commemorate to-day our noble dead, according to im- 
memorial custom, but to honor as a united people those who have 



FRANCE— ANATOLE FRANCE 51 

sacrificed their lives for their country and to meditate upon the 
lesson that comes to us from their scattered burial places. 

First, with the memory of our own, let us with all piety asso- 
ciate the memory of those brave ones who have shed their blood 
under all the Allies' standards, from the streams of the Yser to 
the banks of the Vistule; from the mountains of Frioul to the 
defiles of Morava, and on the vast seas. 

Then, let us offer our choicest flowers of memory to the innocent 
victims of an atrocious cruelty, to the women, to the child mar- 
tyrs, to that young English nurse, guilty only of generosity, 
whose assassination aroused the indignation of the entire uni- 
verse. 

And our dead, our beloved dead ! May a grateful country open 
wide enough its great heart to contain them all, the humblest as well 
as the most illustrious, the heroes fallen with glory to whom have 
been erected monuments of bronze and marble, who will live in 
history, and those simple ones who drew their last breath thinking 
of the green fields of home. 

Blessed be all those whose blood has been shed for their country! 
Not in vain have they sacrificed their lives. At the glorious en- 
counter at Artois, Champagne, and Argonne they repulsed the 
invader who could not advance one step farther on the ground 
made sacred by their fallen bodies. Some weep for them, all ad- 
mire them, more than one envies them. Let us listen to them. 
They speak. Let us make every eff'ort to hear them. Let us 
prostrate ourselves on this ground, torn up by shot and shell, where 
many of them sleep in their blood-dyed garments. Let us kneel 
in the cemetery at the foot of the flower-strewn graves of those who 
were brought back to their country, and there listen to the whispers, 
scarcely audible but powerful, which mingle through the night with 
the murmur of the breeze and the rustle of the falling leaves. Let 



52 DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY 

us make every effort to understand their inspired words. They 
say: 

BROTHERS, live, fight, accomplish our work. Win victory and 
peace for the sake of your dead. Drive out the intruder who has 
already retreated before us, and bring back your plows into the 
fields now saturated with our blood. 

Thus speak our dead. And they say, further: 

FRENCHMEN, love one another with brotherly love, and, in 
order that you may prevail against the enemy, put into common 
use your possessions and your ideas. Let the greatest and strong- 
est among you serve the weak. Be as willing to give your money 
as your blood for your country. Be willing that perfect equality 
shall exist amongst you. You owe this to your dead. Because 
of our example, you owe us the assurance that by your self-sacrifice 
ours will be the triumph in this holiest of all causes. Brothers, in 
order to pay your debt to us you must conquer, and you must do 
still more : you must deserve to conquer. 

Our dead demand that we shall live and fight as citizens of a 
free country ; that we shall march resolutely through the hurricane 
of steel toward Peace, which shall arise like a beautiful aurora over 
Europe freed from the menace of her tyrants, and shall see reborn, 
though weak and timid. Justice and Humanity, for the time being 
crushed through the crime of Germany. 

Thus are the French, detached from the vanities and progress of 
the age, drawn nearer to our dead and inspired by them. 

Anatole France 

Translation by E. M. Pope. 




^ 



*r*^ 



A'^ 



MEMORY 

By J. ./. Van Itufen 
From Ihe. Original Drawing 



FRANCE— HUGHES 53 

THE TRANSPORTS 

Poetical Version of Sully Prud'homme's "Les Berceaux" 

1 HE long tide lifts each mighty boat 

Asleep and nodding at the dock, 
Of the little cradles they take no note 

Which the tender-hearted mothers rock. 

But time brings round the Day of Good-Byes 
For it's women's fate to weep and endure, 

While curious men attempt the skies 
And follow wherever horizons lure. 

Yet the mighty boats on that morning tide 
When they flee away from the dwindling lands 

Will feel the clutch of mother hands 
And the soul of the far-off cradleside. 



CL ^ CI^;>,^.^^"'^/c^/>,^ 



54 DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY 

LA PRIERE DU POILU 

(Written in the Trenches, before Verdun, December, 1915) 

ET alors, le poilu, levant la tete derriere son parapet, se mit, 
dans la nuit froide de decembre, a fixer une etoile qui brillait 
au ciel d'un feu etrange. Son cerveau commenga a remuer de 
loitaines pensees; son coeur se fit plus leger, comme s'il voulait 
monter vers Fastre; ses levres fremirent doucement pour laisser 
passer une priere: 

"0 Etoile, murmura-t-il, je n'ai pas besoin de ta lueur, car je 
connais ma route ! Elle a pu me paraitre sombre au debut, quand 
mes yeux n'etaient point accoutumes a ses rudes contours; mais, 
depuis un an, elle est pour moi eblouissante de clarte. On a beau 
me I'allonger chaque jour, on n'arrivera pas a me I'obscurcir. On 
a beau y multiplier les ronces et les pierres, apres lesquelles je 
laisse de ma chair et de mon sang, on n'arrivera pas a m'y arreter. 
Je sais que j'irai jusqu'au bout. Je vois devant moi la victoire. 
. . . Mais, la-bas, derriere moi, il y a une foule qui parfois 
s'inquiete dans les tenebres. Au moment ou la vieille annee va 
toumer sur ses gonds vermoulus, elle repasse en son esprit agite 
les evenements qui la marquerent. Elle songe aux peuplades bar- 
bares d'Orient que le Germain a entrainees derriere son char: 
Turcs et Bulgares, Kurdes et Malissores, et elle oublie les grandes 
nations qui s'enrolerent sous la banniere de la civilisation. Elle 
songe aux territoires que foule la lourde botte tudesque, et elle 
oublie les empires que nous detenons en gages: ici, I'ouest et Test 
Africains, grands comme quatre fois toute I'Allemagne, avec leurs 
5000 kilometres de voies ferrees et leurs mines de diamants; la, 



FRANCE— LAUZANNE 55 

ces lies d'Oceanie et cette forteresse d'Asie: Kiao-Tcheou, que le 
kaiser avait proclame la perle de ses colonies. Elle s'alarme de 
toutes les pailles que, dans sa course desordonnee, ramasse I'Alle- 
magne et ne voit pas les poutres enormes qui soutiennent la France. 
. . . Nous autres, qui sommes la poutre, nous savons mieux, nous 
voyons mieux. 

"0 Etoile, apprends a ceux qui ne sont pas dans la tranchee 
la confiance! ... 

"Le passe est la qui enseigne I'avenir. Chaque fois qu' une 
armee quelconque, prise de la folic de I'espace, a voulu s' enf oncer 
dans les terres lointaines et abandonner le berceau oil elle puisait 
sa force et ses vivres, elle est morte de langueur et d'epuisement, 
elle s'est effritee comme la pierre qu'on arrache de I'assemblage 
solide des maisons, elle n'est pas plus revenue que ne reviennent 
les grains de poussiere qu'emporte le vent. . . . Voici plus d'un 
siecle que des legions ont tente la conquete de I'Egypte et ces 
legions etaient les plus magnifiques du monde. Elles avaient des 
chefs qui s'appelaient Desaix, Kleber et Bonaparte; mais elles 
n'avaient pas la maitrise de la mer et rien ne revint des sables 
brulants du desert. Voici un siecle aussi qu'une armee la plus 
formidable d'Europe, conduite par le plus fameux conquerant 
qu'ait connu I'univers, tenta de submerger I'immense empire russe ; 
mais I'empire etait trop grand pour la grande armee et rien ne 
revint des solitudes glacees de la steppe. . . . Puisse, de meme, 
aller loin, toujours plus loin, I'armee allemande deja decimee, 
haletante, epuisee! Puisse-t-elle pousser jusqu'au Tigre, jusqu'a 
I'Euphrate, jusqu'a I'lnde! . . . 

"0 Etoile, apprends a ceux qui ne sont pas dans la tranchee, 
I'Histoire! . . . 

"Certes ces nuits d'hiver sont longues. Et tous tes scintille- 



56 DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY 

ments, Etoile, ne valent pas le sourire de la femme aimee au logis. 
Cependant, tu as quelque chose de la femme, puisque tant 
d'hommes te suivent aveuglement: tu en as la grace et Fecial; et 
toi, au moins, nul couturier boche ne t'habilla jamais! . . . Tu 
possedes meme des vertus que ne possede pas toujours la femme: 
tu as la patience et le calme. Les nuages ont beau s'interposer 
entre tes adorateurs et toi, I'aurore a beau chaque matin eteindre 
tes feux, tu t'inclines devant la loi supreme de la nature et nulle 
revolte ne vint jamais de toi. . . . Tache d'inspirer ta soumission 
a tes soeurs terrestres qui, dans les villes, attendent le retour des 
guerriers. 

"0 Etoile, apprends a celles qui ne sont pas dans les tranchees, 
la Discipline! . . . 

"Que tous, que toutes sachent qu'il y a quelque chose au-dessus 
du Nombre, au-dessus de la Force, au-dessus meme du Courage: 
et c'est la Perseverance. ... II y eut, une fois, un match de lutte 
qui restera a jamais celebre dans I'histoire du sport: celui de 
Sam Mac Vea contre Joe Jeannette. Le premier, trapu, massif, 
tout en muscles: un colosse noir du plus beau noir. Le second, 
plus leger, plus harmonieux, tout en nerfs: un metis jaune du plus 
beau cuivre. Le combat fut epique: il se poursuivit pendant 
quarantedeux rounds et dura trois heures. Au troisieme round, 
puis au septieme, Sam Mac Vea jetait Joe Jeannette a terre et sa 
victoire ne paraissait plus faire de doute. Cependant, Joe Jean- 
nette peu a peu revint a la vie, se cramponna, se defendit, vecut 
sur ses nerfs, puis attaqua a son tour. Au quarante-deuxieme 
round, epaule contre epaule, haletants, ruisselants de sang, ils se 
portaient les demiers coups ; mais le ressort de Sam Mac Vea etait 
casse et, devant I'assurance de son adversaire, il se sentit vaincu. 
. . . Alors on vit le grand geant noir lever les bras et s'ecrouler en 
disant: I guess I can not. . . . ( Je crois que je ne peux pas. . . •) 



FRANCE— LAUZANNE 57 

Ainsi, bientot peut-etre, verrons-nous s'ecrouler rAllemagne, en 
avouant: "Je ne peux pas. . . ." 

"0 Etoile, apprends a ceux qui ne sont pas dans la tranchee, la 
Boxe! ..." J ' / / 




THE PRAYER OF ''IE POILV' 

THEN "Le Poilu," standing, in the cold December night, be- 
hind the breastworks, fixed his gaze upon a star that was 
shining with a strange brilliance in the sky above. His mind was 
stirred with thoughts of far away things. His heart grew lighter, 
as though it yearned to reach the star; his lips trembled, and 
softly he breathed a prayer. 

"0 Star," he murmured, "I need not thy glimmering light, for 
I know my way. The road may have appeared dark at first when 
my eyes were unaccustomed to its sharp turns, but for a year it 
has been divinely illumined for me. Even if it grow longer each 
day, it will never seem dark again. Although torn by thorns and 
cut by stones, nothing can make me turn back. I know that I 
shall go on, steadfast to the end. I behold before me Victory. 
. . . But there, — behind me, is a multitude sorely troubled in the 
darkness. 

"Now, as the old year revolves on its rusty hinges, those who 
wait at home live over in their troubled hearts the events which 
marked its passing. They think of the barbarous hordes of the 
Orient which the German has caught in his train; Turcs and Bul- 
garians, Kurds and Malissores, and they overlook the great na- 



58 DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY 

tions enrolled under the banner of civilization. They brood over 
lands ground under the iron heel of the Teuton and overlook the 
Empires that we hold; here, West and East Africa, four times as 
large as all Germany, with their thousands of miles of railroads 
and their diamond mines; there, the Islands of Oceania and the 
fortress of Asia: Kiao-Tcheou, which the Kaiser has proclaimed 
the pearl of his colonies. They are alarmed at the chaff that 
Germany gathers in her lawless course and they do not see the 
mighty girders that stay France. But we who are the girders, we 
know better, we see farther. 

"0 Star, teach those who are not in the trenches. . . . Confi- 
dence! 

"By the light of the past we behold the future. Whenever an 
army, seized with the frenzy of conquest, has forced its way into 
a far land, abandoning the cradle whence it drew its life and 
strength, it has wasted away, it has perished from utter exhaustion. 
Like stones loosened from a solid wall, it has disintegrated. Like 
the grain of dust which the wind has blown away, it has vanished 
never to return. 

"More than a century ago legions attempted the conquest of 
Egypt. They were the most magnificent in the world. Their 
chiefs bore the names of Desaix, Kleber and Bonaparte. But they 
had not the mastery of the seas, and returned not from the burning 
sands of the desert. . . . Think also of the time when the most 
formidable army of Europe, led by the greatest conqueror the 
world has ever known, tried to overwhelm the vast Russian Em- 
pire. But the empire was mightier than the Great Army, and it 
returned not from the glacial solitude of the steppes. ... So let 
it go far, ever farther on, that German army already decimated, 
panting, exhausted ; let it reach the Tigris, the Euphrates, even far 
off India! It will not return. 



FRANCE— LAUZANNE 59 

"0 Star, teach those who are not in the trenches. . , . History! 

"Truly the winter nights are long, and all thy rays, Star, are 
not worth the smile of the loved woman at the hearth. And yet, 
thou hast something of woman, since so many men follow thee 
blindly: thou hast her grace and splendor. Thou hast even vir- 
tues that women do not possess, for thou art patient and calm. 
Clouds come between thy worshipers and thee, dawn each morning 
extinguishes thy light, yet dost thou bow before the supreme law of 
nature without a murmur. I pray thee inspire with submission thy 
sisters of earth; teach them calmly and patiently to await the 
return of their warriors. 

"0 Star, teach those who are not in the trenches. . . . Disci- 
pline! 

"Would that all men, that all women might know that there is 
something above Numbers, above Force, above even Courage, and 
that is Perseverance! A few years ago there was a boxing match 
between Sam Mac Vea and Joe Jeannette that will remain famous 
in the history of sport. Mac Vea was a heavy weight, strong, all 
muscle: a veritable black giant. Joe Jeannette, light, well pro- 
portioned, all nerve: a mongrel of the best sort. The match was 
epic. It went on for forty-two rounds and lasted three hours. 
At the third round, and again at the seventh, Sam Mac Vea threw 
Joe Jeannette, and his victory seemed assured. But little by little 
Joe Jeannette revived, pulled himself together, defended himself, 
and through sheer nerve, began to attack. At the forty-second 
round, shoulder to shoulder, panting, dripping wet and covered 
with blood they struck the last blow. The resources of Sam Mac 
Vea were exhausted, and through the very assurance of his adver- 
sary he felt himself beaten. . . . Suddenly the great giant lifted 
his arms and gave way, saying: 'I guess I cannot.' . . . 



60 DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY 

"Thus shall we soon see Germany fall to the earth, saying brok- 
enly, 'I cannot.' . . . 

"0 Star, teach those who are not in the trenches ... to be 



game!' 



Stephane Lauzanne 

Translation by JVIadame Carlo Polifeme. 



GREAT BRITAIN— BECK 61 

A TRIBUTE TO ENGLAND 

IT MAY be said of this war, as the master mind of all the ages 
said of adversity, that "its uses are sweet," even though they 
be as a precious jewel shining in the head of an ugly and 
venomous toad. While the world-war has brutalized men, it has 
as a moral paradox added immeasurably to the sum of human 
nobility. Its epic grandeur is only beginning to reveal itself, and 
in it the human soul has reached the high water mark of courage 
and honor. 

The war has enriched our language with many new expressions, 
but none more beautiful than that of "Somewhere in France." To 
all noble minds, while it sounds the abysmal depths of tragic 
suffering, it rises to the sublimest heights of heroic self-sacrifice. 

The world has paid its tribute to the immortal valor of France, 
and no words could pay the debt of appreciation which civiliza- 
tion owes to this heroic nation ; but has there been due recognition 
of the equal valor and the like spirit of self-sacrifice which has 
characterized Great Britain in this titanic struggle? 

When the frontier of Belgium was crossed, England staked the 
existence of its great empire upon the issue of the uncertain strug- 
gle. It had, as figures go in this war, only a small army. If it 
had been niggardly in its effort to defend Belgium, and save France 
in her hour of supreme peril, England might have said, without 
violating any express obligation arising under the Entente Cordiale, 
that in giving its incomparable fleet it had rendered all the service 
that its political interests, according to former standards of ex- 
pediency, justified; and it could have been plausibly suggested 
that the ordinary considerations of prudence and the instinct of 
self-preservation required it, in the face of the deadly assault by 



62 DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY 

the greatest military power in the world, to reserve its little army 
for the defense of its own soil. England never hesitated, when 
the Belgian frontier was crossed, but moved with such extraordi- 
nary speed that within four days after its declaration of war its 
standing army was crossing the channel, and within a fortnight 
it had landed upon French soil the two army corps which con- 
stituted the backbone of her military power. 

What follows will be remembered with admiration and grati- 
tude by the English speaking races as long as they endure, for 
nothing in the history of that race is finer than the way in which 
the so called "contemptible little British Army," as the Kaiser 
somewhat prematurely called it — outnumbered four to one, and 
with an even greater disproportion iii artillery — withstood the 
powerful legions of Von Kluck at Mons. Enveloped on both flanks 
they stood as a stone wall for three days against an assault of one 
of the mightiest armies in recorded history, and only retreated 
when ordered to do so by the high command of the Allied forces 
in order to conform to its strategic plans. The English were not 
defeated at Mons. It was a victory, both in a technical and moral 
sense. 

The retreat from Mons to the Mame was one of terrible hardship 
and imminent danger. For nearly fourteen days, in obedience to 
orders, the British soldiers, — fighting terrific rear guard actions, 
which, in retarding the invaders, made possible the ultimate vic- 
tory, — slowly retreated, never losing their morale, although suffer- 
ing untold physical hardships and the greater agony of temporary 
defeats, which they could not at that time understand, and yet 
it is to their undying credit, in common with their brave comrades 
of the French Army, that when the moment came to cease the 
retreat and to turn upon a foe, which flushed with unprecedented 
victory still greatly outnumbered the retreating armies, the British 



GREAT BRITAIN— BECK 63 

soldier struck back with almost undiminished power. The "mir- 
acle of the Marne" is due to Tommy Atkins as well as to the 
French Poilu. 

Even more wonderful was the defense of Ypres. There was a 
time in the first battle of Ypres when the British high command, 
denuded of shells, were allotting among their commands, then en- 
gaged in a life-and-death struggle, ammunition which had not yet 
left England. So terribly was the "first seven divisions" of 
glorious memory decimated in this first battle of Ypres, that at a 
critical time, the bakers, cobblers and grooms were put into the 
trenches to fill the gaps made by the slain soldiers in that great 
charnel house. The "thin red line" held back — not for days, but 
for weeks, — an immensely superior force, and the soldiers of 
England unflinchingly bared their breasts to the most destructive 
artillery-fire that the world at that time had ever known. They 
held their ground and saved the day, and the glory of the first and 
second battles of Ypres, which saved Calais, and possibly the war 
itself, will ever be that of the British Army. 

Over four million Britons have volunteered in the war, and 
although very few of them had ever had any previous military 
experience, yet their stamina and unconquerable courage were 
such that the youth of the great Empire, on more than one occasion, 
when called upon, as on the Somme, to attack as well as defend, 
swept the famed Prussian guard out of seemingly impregnable 
positions, as for example at Contalmaison. 

Will the world ever forget the children of the Mother Empire 
who came so freely and nobly from far distant Canada, who 
wrenched Vimy and Messines ridges from a powerful foe? 

I hear still the tramp of marching thousands in the first days 
of the war, as they passed through the streets of Winchester en 
route to France via Southampton, singing with cheer and joy, 



64 DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY 

"It is a long, long way to Tipperary." Alas! It is indeed a 
"long, long way," and many a gallant English boy has fallen in 
that way of glory. 

To-day, from the Channel to the Vosges, there are hundreds of 
thousands of graves where British soldiers keep the ghostly bivouac 
of the dead. They gave their young lives on the soil of France to 
save France, and when the great result is finally accomplished, 
a grateful world will never forget the "fidelity even unto death" of 
the British soldier. Their place on Fame's eternal camping ground 
is sure. 

What just man can fail to appreciate the work of the English 
sailor? It has been said by Lord Curzon, that never has an English 
mariner in this war refused to accept the arduous and most dan- 
gerous service of patrolling the great highways of the deep. No 
soldier can surpass in courage or fortitude the mine sweepers, who 
have braved the elemental forces of nature, and the most cruel 
forces of the Terror, which lurks under the seas. 

The spirit of Nelson still inspires them, for every mariner of 
England has done his duty in this greatest crisis of the modem 
world. 

And how can words pay due tribute to the work and sacrifices 
of the women and children of England? They have endured 
hardships with masculine strength, and have accepted irreparable 
sacrifices with infinite self-sacrifice. 

When the three British cruisers were sunk early in the war by a 
single submarine, and many thousand British sailors perished, the 
news was conveyed to a seaport town in England, from which 
many of them had been recruited, by posting upon a screen the 
names of the pitifully few men who had survived that terrible 
disaster. Thousands of women, the wives and daughters of those 
who had perished, waited in the open square in the hope, in most 



GREAT BRITAIN— BECK 65 

cases in vain, to see the name of some one who was dear to them 
posted among the survivors; and yet when the last names of the 
rescued were finally posted, and thousands of English women, 
there assembled, realized that those who were nearest and dearest 
to them had perished beneath the waves, these women of England, 
instead of lamentations or tears, in the spirit of loftiest and most 
sacred patriotism united their voices and sang "Britannia Rules the 
Waves," and re-affirmed their belief that, notwithstanding all the 
powers of Hell, that "Britons never would be slaves." 

Who shall then question England's right to a conspicuous place 
in this worldwide tournament of Fame? In all her past history, 
there has never been any page more glorious. Without her, as 
without France, civilization would have perished. To each na- 
tion be lasting honor! 

The spirit of Shakespeare has animated his people, and that 
mighty spirit still says to them in his own flaming words — 

*'In GofTs name, cheerily on, courageous friends, 
To reap the harvest of perpetual peace 
By this one bloody trial of sharp war.'* 



<^/^t^v^<,.x6<x^-^^>-<i_fe.yt.^ 



66 DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY^ 

UNITY AND PEACE 

GREAT BRITAIN and the United States were politically sepa- 
rated nearly a century and a half ago, because Britain was 
not in those days governed by the will of the people as she has been 
for the last eighty years and more. But the ideals of the two na- 
tions have been for many generations substantially the same. 
Both have loved Liberty ever since the time when their common 
ancestors wrested it from feudal monarchs. A time has now come 
when both nations are called to defend, and to extend in the world 
at large, the freedom they won within their own countries. Amer- 
ica has barkened to the call. Renouncing her former isolation, 
she has felt that duty to mankind requires her to contend in arms 
for the freedom she has illustrated by her example. The soldiers 
of Britain and France welcome the stalwart sons of America as 
their comrades in this great struggle for Democracy and Humanity. 
With their help, they look forward confidently to a decisive vic- 
tory, a victory to be followed by a lasting peace. 



/?^<^ 




THE RIGHT HONOURABLE 

ARTHUR JAMES RALFOUR 

"Here was a great British statesman equal to his place and fame. 
He will long be remembered in America. He has done a high 
service to Great Britain and all democracies." 

— Neiv York Times (Editorial). 



GREAT BRITAIN— HICHENS 67 

OUR COMMON HERITAGE 

NOT very long ago I happened to be dining in The Savoy Res- 
taurant in London one evening at a table close to the screen, 
when suddenly there was a stir. People looked away from their 
dinners. The band abruptly stopped the air it was playing, and 
after an instant's pause struck up another. Every one in the 
crowded restaurant stood up. And then there came in slowly 
from the outer hall a procession of serious looking men in uniform, 
who, walking in couples, made their way to a large table almost 
in the middle of the room. They gained their places. The air 
ceased. The new comers sat down. And we all went on with 
our dinners and our interrupted conversations. 

What did we talk about? Well, I will dare forswear that at all 
the tables the same subject was discussed. And tliat subject was 
— America. For the air we had heard was "The Star Spangled 
Banner," and the men we had seen were General Pershing, com- 
manding the first American contingent to France, and his Staff, who 
had landed that day in England. It was a great moment for 
Britishers, and those of us who were there will probably never 
forget it. For it meant the beginning of a New Era, and, let us 
hope, of a new sympathy and a new understanding. 

Since then we have learnt something of what America is doing. 
We know that ten millions of men have registered as material for 
the American army, that a gigantic aircraft scheme and a huge 
shipbuilding program are in process of realization; that enormous 
camps and cantonments have been established for the training of 
officers and men, that American women have crossed the Atlantic, 
in spite of the great danger from submarines, to act as nurses at the 
front, that the regular army has been increased to thrice its former 



68 DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY 

size, that the volunteer militia has been doubled through voluntary 
enlistment, and that an immense expenditure has been voted for 
war purposes. We know all this and we are glad, and thankful 
that hands have been held out to us across the sea. 

True sympathy and true understanding are very rare in this 
world. Even between individuals they are not easy to bring about, 
and between nations they are practically unknown. Diversity of 
tongues builds up walls between the peoples. But the Americans 
and the British ought to learn to draw near to each other, and surely 
the end of this war, whenever it comes, will find them more inclined 
for true friendship, for frank understanding, than they have ever 
been yet, less critical of national failings, less clearsighted for 
national faults. The brotherhood of man, which the idealistic 
Russian sighs for, may only be a far away dream, but the brother- 
hood of those who speak one language, have one great aim, and 
fight side by side for freedom against force, law against lawless- 
ness, justice against persecution, right against evil, is a reality, and 
must surely endure long after the smoke of the world war has 
faded into the blue sky of peace, and the roar of the guns has died 
away into the silence of the dawn for which humanity is longing. 

The happy warriors lead us. Let us follow them and we shall 
attain a goodly heritage. 



yf/U^'^yfrk^iUt.^ ' 



GREAT BRITAIN— McKENNA 69 

POETIC JUSTICE 



THE blow fell without warning, and a typewritten notice in- 
formed the Poet that the Cabinet Committee on Accommoda- 
tion required the tiny, thread-bare chambers in Stafford's Inn, 
where he had lived unobtrusively for seven happy, insolvent 
years. 

" 'There was no worth in the fashion; there was no wit in the 
plan,' " murmured the Poet. The rooms were too small even for 
a Deputy-Director-General, and he knew that not one of the silk- 
stockinged, short-skirted, starling-voiced young women with bare 
arms and regimental badges, who acted as secretaries to Deputy- 
Director-Generals, would consent to walk up four flights of creak- 
ing, uncarpeted stairs to the dusty sparrows' nest on the housetop 
that was his home. 

For a while he scented a vendetta, but — deleterious poetry apart 
— he had injured no man, and the personnel of the Cabinet Com- 
mittee was as little known to him as his poetry to the Cabinet Com- 
mittee. In general, too, he was the object of a certain popularity 
and pitying regard; the Millionaire sent him presents of super- 
fluous game each year, the Iron King invited him at short notice to 
make a fourteenth at dinner and the Official Receiver unloaded six 
bottles of sample port wine when the Poet succumbed to his annual 
bronchitis. Even the notice of eviction was politely worded and 
regretful; it was also uncompromising in spirit, and the Poet made 
his hurried way to four house-agents. No sooner had he stated 
his requirements to be a bed-sitting-room (with use of bath) within 
the four-mile radius than all four agents off'ered him a Tudor 
manor house in Westmoreland; further, they refused to off"er him 



70 DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY 

anything else, but on his own initiative he discovered a studio in 
Glebe Place and a service-flat in Victoria Street. 

"I saw in the paper that you'd been turned out," said the Mil- 
lionaire that night, when the Poet trudged home, footsore and 
fretful, to find his chambers occupied by the Iron King, the Private 
Secretary, the Lexicographer, tlie Military Attache and their 
friends. "What are you going to do about it?" he continued with 
the relentlessness of a man who likes a prompt decision, even if it 
be a wrong one. "You know nothing about business, I'm sure; 
leases, premiums, insurance, all that sort of thing. You're in a 
hole; I don't see what more there is to be said." 

So far the Poet, his mind wavering wearily between Glebe Place 
and Victoria Street, had said nothing; he turned silently to the Iron 
King, wondering how, without being rude, to indicate his desire 
for bed. 

"I saw rather a decent place that might suit you," drawled the 
Private Secretary, smoothing a wrinkle out of his shapely silk 
socks. "It's next to my Chief's in Belgrave Square. Of course, 
I don't know what rent they want for it . . ." 

The Iron King shook his head. 

"He couldn't aff'ord it," he said, speaking through and round 
and over the Poet. "Now I'm told that there are some very com- 
fortable and cheap boarding-houses near Kensington Palace Gar- 
dens. . . ." 

The Poet drew the cork of a fresh bottle of whisky and collected 
four unbroken tumblers, a pewter mug and two breakfast cups 
without handles. As so often before, his destiny seemed to be 
slipping out of his control into the hands of the practical, strong- 
voiced men who filled his sitting-room to overflowing and would 
not let him go to bed. The Military Attache knew of a maisonnette 
in Albemarle Street; the Official Receiver had been recently brought 



GREAT BRITAIN— McKENNA 71 

into professional contact with a fine Georgian property in Bucking- 
hamshire, where they could all meet for a week-end game of golf at 
Stoke Pogis. Somewhere in Chelsea — not Glebe Place — the Lexi- 
cographer had seen just the thing, if only he could be quite sure 
about the drains . . . With loud cheerfulness they accepted the 
Millionaire's postulate that the Poet knew nothing of business; un- 
selfishly they placed all their experience and preferences at his 
disposal. 

"Of course, there's the servant problem," an undistinguishable 
voice remarked two hours later; and the Poet, settling to an uneasy 
sleep in his chair, mentally ruled out the Chelsea studio. 

"The ordinary surveyor's no use," broke in the Lexicographer, 
pursuing his own line of thought. "What you want is a drainage 
expert." 

"I know these good, honest, middle-aged couples," cried the Iron 
King with the bitterness of an oft-defrauded widower. "The 
woman always drinks, and the man always steals the cigars . . ." 

"I have nothing but gas in my place," said the decorous voice of 
the Private Secretary, "and I have it on pretty good authority that 
there'll be a great coal shortage this winter. I don't want that to 
go any further, though . . ." 

The Millionaire rose to his feet with a yawn. 

"He must get an experienced woman-friend to help him with 
things like carpets and curtains," he ordained with mellow benevo- 
lence. "When my wife comes back from Wales . . . How soon 
do you have to turn out. Poet?" 

The Poet woke with a start and looked at the clock. The time 
was a quarter to two, and he still wanted to go to bed. 

"Ten days," he murmured drowsily. 

"Jove! You haven't much time," said the Millionaire. "Now, 
look here ; the one thing not to do is to be in a hurry. Any place 



72 DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY 

you take now will probably have to serve you for several years, and 
you'll find moving a lot more expensive than you think. If you 
can get some kind of shake-down for a few days, — " he turned 
expansively to his friends — "we may be able to give you a few 
hints." 

The Poet became suddenly wakeful and alert. 

"Do I understand that you're offering me a bed until you find 
me permanent quarters?" he enquired with slow precision. 

"Er — yes," said the Millionaire a little blankly. 

"Thank you," answered the Poet simply. "I say, d'you men 
mind if I turn you out now? It's rather late, and I haven't been 
sleeping very well." 



II 



A 



WEEK later the Poet walked up Park Lane, followed by an 
elderly man trundling two compressed cane trunks on a bar- 
row with a loose wheel. It was a radiant summer afternoon, and 
taxis stood idle in long ranks, when they were not drawing in to 
the curb with winning gestures. The Poet, however, wished to 
make his arrival dramatic, and it was dramatic enough to make 
the Millionaire's butler direct him to the tradesmen's entrance, 
while the Millionaire, remembering little but suspecting all, hur- 
ried away by a side door, leaving a message that he was out of 
England for the duration of the war. The lot fell on the Million- 
aire's wife to invent such excuses as would rid the house of the 
Poet's presence before dinner. The Millionaire's instincts were 
entirely hospitable, but that night's party had been arranged for the 
entertainment and subsequent destruction of four men with money 
to invest and, like the Poet, "no knowledge of business, investments, 
all that sort of thing." 

"No, we have not met before," explained the Poet coldly and 



GREAT BRITAIN— McKENNA 73 

uncompromisingly, abandoning the rather gentle voice and caress- 
ing manners which caused women to invite him to dinner when they 
could think of no one else. "Your husband and one or two of our 
common friends have kindly undertaken to find me new quarters, 
and I have been invited to stay here until something suitable has 
been found." 

There was silence for a few moments, and the Millionaire's 
wife looked apprehensively at the clock, while the Poet laid the 
foundations of a malignantly substantial tea. 

"H-how far have you got at present?" she asked with an em- 
barrassed laugh. 

"Your husband told me to leave it to him," answered the Poet, 
"and I've left it to him. There was a general feeling that I didn't 
know what I wanted — house or flat, north or south of the Park, all 
the rest of it — ; they said there would be a scandal if I employed 
a young maid, I couldn't aiford two, and an old one would pawn 
my clothes to buy gin. I am quoting your husband now; I know 
nothing of business. Every one agreed, too, that I must have a 
drain of some kind. Would you say it took long to find a bed- 
sitting room with use of bath?" 

The Millionaire's wife hurriedly pushed back her chair. 

"My husband's going abroad for the duration of the war," she 
said in loyal explanation, "but it's just possible that he hasn't 
started yet." 

The Millionaire, returning on tip-toe from the loft over the 
garage, had sought asylum in the library, where he was smoking 
a cigar and reading the evening paper. As his wife entered he 
looked up with welcoming expectancy. 

"How did you get rid of him?" he asked. 

The Millionaire's wife pressed her hands to her temples. 

"My dear! What have you been promising him?" she cried. 



74 DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY 

The Millionaire swore softly, as the truth sank into his brain. 

"Have another place laid for dinner," he ordered; "book two 
seats for a music-hall and take him out to supper afterwards. I 
can't afford to be disturbed to-night. To-morrow I must get in 
touch with the Iron King ... I don't see what more there is to 
be said." 

Four weeks later the Poet drove in a six-cylinder car from Park 
Lane to Eaton Square on an indeterminate visit to the Iron King. 
He was looking better for the month's good wine and food, in which 
the Millionaire's house abounded; but now the Millionaire, who 
based his fortune on knowing the right people in every walk of 
life, was arranging to have his house taken over by the Red Cross 
authorities. In a week's time the house was to be found unsuitable 
and restored to him, but henceforth the Iron King was to have the 
honor of entertaining the Poet. 

"How you ever came to make such a promise!" wailed the Mil- 
lionaire's wife for the twentieth time, as they drove to Claridge's. 
"London's so full that you might have known it's impossible to get 
o/ijthing." 

"I feel that we have exhausted this subject," answered the Mil- 
lionaire with the bruskness of a man whose nerves have worn 
thin; with the menace, too, of one who, having divorced his first 
wife, would divorce the second on small provocation. 

The Iron King was not at home when the Poet arrived in Eaton 
Square, but a pretty, young secretary, cultured to the point of trans- 
forming all her final "g's" into "k's" received him with every mark 
of welcome. She admired the Iron King romantically and was in 
the habit of writing his surname after her own Christian name to 
see how the combination looked; and, when he had departed each 
morning to contest his latest assessment for excess profits, she 
would wander through the house, planning little changes in the ar- 



GREAT BRITAIN—McKENNA 75 

rangement of the furniture and generally deploring the sober, 
colorless taste of the first Iron Queen. So far her employer re- 
turned none of her admiration. He addressed her loosely as 
"Miss — er" and forgot her name; he never noticed what clothes 
she was wearing or the pretty dimples that she made by holding 
down the inside flesh of her cheeks between her eye-teeth; further, 
he criticized her spelling spitefully and, on the occasion of the 
Millionaire's second marriage, had dictated a savage half sheet, 
beginning, "A young man may marry once, as he may get drunk 
once, without the world thinking much the worse of him; habitual 
intemperance is, on first principles, to be deplored. . . ." 

The pretty young secretary knew from fiction and the drama 
that the Iron King would never appreciate her until he stood in 
danger of losing her. She welcomed the Poet as a foil and mis- 
quoted his poetry twice before tea was over; then she invited him 
to accompany her to a picture palace, but the Poet, once inside the 
citadel, was reluctant to leave it until his position was more firmly 
established. 

Securely entrenched at Claridge's, the Millionaire telephoned 
derisively to the city, so that the Iron King returned home half an 
hour before his usual time, prepared to deal with the Poet as he 
dealt with querulous or inquisitive shareholders at General Meet- 
ings. The Poet, however, was long and painfully accustomed to 
combat with enraged editors and lost no time in assuming the offen- 
sive, demanding indignantly in a high head-voice, before the Iron 
King had crossed his own threshold, why no quarters had been 
found for him and how much longer any one imagined that he 
would put up with the indignity of being bandied from one 
wretched house to another. 

The flushed cheeks and hysterical manner put the Iron King tem- 
porarily out of countenance. 



76 DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY 

"My dear fellow!" he interrupted ingratiatingly. 

"I'm not a business man," continued the Poet hotly. "You all 
of you told me that, and I'm disposed to say: 'Thank God, I'm 
not. 

The Iron King put his hat carefully out of reach and forced 
a smile. 

"You mustn't take it like that, old chap," he said soothingly. 
"I — we — all of us are doing our best. Now we won't bother about 
dressing; let's go straight in and thrash the thing out over a bottle of 
wine." 

Instructing his butler very audibly to open a bottle of the 1906 
Lanson, he slipped his arm through the Poet's and led him, sullenly 
murmuring, into the dining-room. With the second bottle of cham- 
pagne, his guest ceased to be aggrieved and became quarrelsome; 
when the port wine appeared, he had the Iron King cowed and 
broken in moral. 

"If you find fault with everything, why do you come here, why 
stay here?" complained the Iron King with a last flickering eff^ort 
to recover his independence. 

"Why don't you find me some other place to go to, as you 
promised?" the Poet retorted, as he made his way to the morning- 
room and sat down to order a month's supply of underclothes from 
his hosier. 

Ill 

JL HE Iron King always boasted that honesty was the best policy 
and that he was invariably willing to put his cards on the table. 
The Millionaire had once professed himself likely to be satisfied if 
the Iron King would only remove the fifth ace from his sleeve, and 
a certain coolness between the two men resulted. In general, how- 
ever, he had the reputation of a frank, bluff" fellow. 



GREAT BRITAIN— McKENNA 77 

On the morrow of the Poet's arrival, he remained in bed and 
announced in the quavering pencil-strokes of a sick man, that he 
was suffering from anthrax, which, he might add, was not only- 
painful but infectious. The Poet scrawled across one comer of the 
note that anthrax was usually fatal, but that, as he himself had 
twice had it, he would risk taking it a third time in order to be with 
his friend. Thereupon the Iron King departed to the city, leaving 
the Poet to dictate blank verse to the pretty young secretary, who 
curled both feet round one leg of her chair, told him that she "loved 
his potry more'n anythink she'd ever read" and asked how all the 
hard words like "chrysoprase" and "asphodel" were spelt. That 
night a telegram arrived shortly before dinner, and the Iron King 
announced that the Ministry of Munitions was sending him to 
America to stabilize iron prices. 

"Why can't you finish one thing before starting another?" de- 
manded the Poet hectoringly. "You haven't yet found me any 
quarters, and you call yourself a business man. I shall of course 
stay on here till your return . . ." 

The Iron King shook his head gravely. 

"That's impossible," he interrupted. "My young secre- 
tary ..." 

"You must take her with you," answered the Poet obstinately. 

The subject was not pursued, but at bed time the Iron King 
roundly asked the Poet how much he would take to go away. 

"I require a home," answered the Poet frigidly, remembering 
the weary day spent by him in discovering the Glebe Place studio 
and the weary night spent by the Iron King in recommending 
Kensington boarding houses. "I do not want your money." 

"We shan't fall out over a pound or two," urged the Iron King 
with a meaning motion of the hand towards his breast pocket. 

"A thing is either a promise or it is not a promise," replied the 



78 DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY 

Poet, as he turned on his heel. "I know nothing of business or 
what people are pleased to term 'commercial morality.' " 

Four weeks later the Poet left Eaton Square for the Private 
Secretary's rooms in Bury Street. He looked thin and anemic 
after his month of privations, for the Iron King, improving in 
morale and recapturing something of the old strike-breaking spirit, 
had counter-attacked on the third day of the Poet's visit. The 
chauffeur, butler and two footmen, all of military age, had been 
claimed on successive appeals as indispensable, but on their last 
appearance at the Tribunal the Iron King had unprotestingly pre- 
sented them to the Army. This he followed by breakfasting in 
bed, lunching in the city, dining at his club and leaving neither 
instructions nor money for the maintenance of the household. For 
a time the Poet was saved from the greater starvation by the care of 
the pretty young secretary, but without an Iron King there was no 
need for a foil. Sharp words were exchanged one morning over 
the propriety of grounds in coffee; the pretty young secretary de- 
clared that she would "have nothink more to do with him or his old 
potry"; and in the afternoon he packed his trunks with his own 
hands and with his own hands dragged them downstairs on to the 
pavement, leaving the pretty young secretary biting viciously at 
the comer of a crumpled handkerchief drenched in "White Rose." 

The Private Secretary received him in a manner different from 
that adopted by either the Millionaire or the Iron King. The two 
men were of nearly the same age, but in a deferential, if mis-spent, 
life the Private Secretary had learned to be non-committal. Well 
he knew that he had but one bedroom ; well he knew that, on admit- 
ting it, the Poet would claim it from him. 

"A spare bed?" he echoed, when the Poet dragged his trunks 
into the middle of a tiny sitting room. "Really, I have no state- 
ment to make." 



GREAT BRITAIN— McKENN A 79 

"At least you will not deny," said the Poet with truculent em- 
phasis, "that you undertook to find me suitable accommodation 
and to supply me with a bed until it was found." 

"I must refer you to the reply given to a similar question on 
the twenty-third ultimo," answered the Private Secretary loftily. 
For a rich reward he could not have said where he had been or 
what he had done on the twenty-third ultimo, but to the Poet the 
reply was new and disconcerting. 

"Where's my flat anyway?" he pursued doggedly. 

"I have no statement to make," reiterated the Private Secretary. 

After an awkward silence, during which neither yielded an inch 
of ground, the Poet dragged his trunks destructively downstairs 
and drove to the flat of the Official Receiver. Glowing with the 
consciousness of victory, the Private Secretary dressed for dinner 
and started out to his club. His good-humor was impaired, when 
he observed in his hall a pendant triangle of wall-paper flapping in 
the draught of the open door through which the Poet had dragged 
his trunks. Further on, the paint was scarred on the stairs, and 
the carpet of the main hall was rucked and disordered; there was 
also a lingering suggestion of escaping gas, and the Secretary 
observed a bracket hanging at a bibulous angle. 

"This," he murmured through grimly set teeth, "is sheer fright- 
fulness." 

Returning to his rooms, he drawled a friendly warning by tele- 
phone to the Millionaire, who instantly gave orders that no one 
of any sex or age was to be admitted. Next he called up the Iron 
King and repeated the warning; then the Lexicographer, the Official 
Receiver and the Military Attache were similarly placed on their 
guard, and there was nothing to do but to proceed to his belated 
dinner. 

The Great War, which had converted staff officers into popular 



80 DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY 

preachers, novelists into strategical experts and every one else into 
a Minister of the Crown, had left the Poet (in name, at least) a poet 
and in nothing else anything at all. He acted precisely as the 
Private Secretary had intended him to act, driving first to the 
Lexicographer's house, where he was greeted by a suspiciously 
new "TO LET" board, and thence to the Official Receiver's flat, 
where a typewritten card informed him that this bell was out of 
order. Embarrassed but purposeful, he directed his four-wheeler 
to Eaton Square, but the blinds were down, and a semblance of 
mourning draped the Iron King's house. In Park Lane a twenty- 
yard expanse of straw, nine inches thick, prayed silence for the 
Millionaire's quick recovery. 

"I don't know where to go to next," murmured the Poet de- 
jectedly. 

"Well, I'm blest if I do," grumbled the driver. "And it's past 
my tea-time. Doncher know where yer live?" 

"Years ago I had rooms in Stafford's Inn," began the Poet. 
"Then the Cabinet Committee . . ." 

The cabman descended from his box for a heart to heart con- 
versation. 

"Now you look 'ere," he said. "I got a boy at 'ome the livin' 
image of you . . ." 

"But how nice!" interrupted the Poet, wondering apprehen- 
sively whether an invitation was on its way to him. 

The cabman sniffed. 

"Not quite right in 'is 'ead 'e ain't. Thereiore I don't want to 
be 'arsh with yer. Jump inside, let me drive yer ter Stafford's Inn, 
pay me me legal fare and a bob ter drink yer 'ealth — and we'll say 
no more abaht it. If yer don't — " He made a threatening ges- 
ture towards the Poet's precariously strapped trunks — "I'll throw 



GREAT BRITAIN— McKENNA 81 

the blinkin' lot on ter the pivement, and yer can carry 'em 'ome 
on yer 'ead. See?" 

"I couldn't, you know," objected the Poet gently. 

"Jump inside," repeated the cabman. 

One hope was as forlorn as another, and the Poet was too sick 
with hunger to think of resistance. In time the four-wheeler 
rumbled its way to Stafford's Inn; in time and by force of habit 
the Poet was mounting the bare, creaking, wooden stairs; in time 
he found himself fitting his unsurrendered latch key into his aban- 
doned lock. 

Beyond an eight weeks' layer of dust on chairs and table, the 
threadbare rooms were little changed. A loaf of bread, green and 
furred with mold, lay beside an empty marmalade pot from which 
a cloud of flies emerged with angry buzzing; a breakfast cup with- 
out a handle completed the furniture of the table, and in the rickety 
armchair was an eight-week-old Morning Post. 

"The Cabinet Committee has neglected its opportunities," grum- 
bled the Poet, surveying with disfavor the dusty, derelict scene. 

Then his eye was caught by a long envelope, thrust half-way 
under the door, from the Cabinet Committee itself. An inde- 
cipherable set of initials, later describing itself as his obedient 
servant, was directed to inform him on a date two months earlier 
that it had been decided not to requisition the offices and chambers 
of Staff'ord's Inn. The formal notice was accordingly to be re- 
garded as canceled. 

The Poet, who knew nothing of business, wrote instructing his 
solicitors to claim for two months' disturbance from the Defense of 
the Realm Commission on Losses and to include all legal costs in 
the claim. 



82 DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY 

IV 

1 HREE weeks later the Private Secretary was strolling across the 
Horse Guards' Parade on his way to luncheon, when he caught 
sight of the Poet. Since their last altercation his conscience had 
been as uneasy as a Private Secretary's conscience can be, and he 
strove to avoid the meeting. The Poet, however, was full of 
sunshine and smiles. 

"I've not seen you for weeks!" he cried welcomingly. "How's 
everybody and what's everybody doing? Is the Millionaire all 
right again? I understand he's been ill." 

The Private Secretary eyed his friend suspiciously. 

"He has not left his house for three weeks," he answered. 

"And the Iron King?" 

"He has not either." 

The Poet's eyes lit up with dawning comprehension. 

"What about the Lexicographer and the Official Receiver?" he 
asked. "The same? What an infernal nuisance! I wanted to 
call round and see whether they had got me a flat." 

The Private Secretary shook his head. 

"It's not the least use," he said emphatically. "None of them 
has been outside his front door for three weeks, no one knows when 
they'll come out again, no one is allowed inside. Last night I 
had a box given me for the theater, and I tried to make up a party ; 
all their telephones were disconnected, and, when I drove round 
in person, I couldn't even get the bell answered." He paused and 
then enquired carelessly, "By the way, have you got into your new 
quarters yet? They would be interested to know." 

"I haven't got any new quarters," answered tlie Poet. "You 
remember that you and the others were going to find them for me. 



GREAT BRITAIN— McKENNA 83 

I know nothing of business — and I'm not likely to get new rooms 
until I see the Millionaire and the Iron King." 

At the steps of his club the Private Secretary paused, as though 
wondering whether to say that the Poet was unlikely to see the Iron 
King or the Millionaire until he had got his new rooms. This 
prolonged voluntary self-internment was a source of inconvenience, 
for in the peaceful days before the Cabinet Committee on Accom- 
modation had stepped in, there were pleasant parties in Eaton 
Square and Park Lane. Now the Private Secretary was reduced 
to paying for his own dinners more often than was agreeable. He 
said nothing, however, for fear of concentrating the Poet's fire on 
himself. 

"It must be simply wrecking their business," said the Poet to 
himself, as he walked to Bedford Row to see how the claim for 
disturbance was progressing. "It serves them right, though, for 
talking drains when I wanted to go to bed." 

Stephen McKenna 



84 DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY 

THE SPELL OF THE KILTIES 

WHAT made the crowds turn out in their applauding thou- 
sands in New York, Boston, Chicago, Brooklyn, and wher- 
ever the "Kilties" from Canada appeared during their visit to the 
United States of America on their British Recruiting Mission, dur- 
ing the summer of 1917? 

Or why do the inhabitants of Paris single out the kilted regiments 
when a March Past of the forces of the Allies is held on a National 
Fete Day, and press upon the soldiers with showers of flowers and 
tokens of admiration? 

Is it simply because the dress worn is somewhat out of the com- 
mon, giving a touch of color to these gray times, and bringing 
associations of days of old, as the men swing along, with a swish 
of their kilts, to the skirl of the Pipes? 

Or is there not a deeper meaning in this spontaneous welcome 
which comes so evidently from the hearts of the onlookers, and one 
which is reflected in the popularity of Colonel Walter Scott's New 
York kilted Highlanders, and by the many fine bodies of men 
turned out — mostly at their own expense — ^by the Scottish Clan 
and Highland Dress Associations, in various cities of the U. S. A.? 

The truth is that deep down in the hearts of the majority of the 
human race there exists a profound attachment to the ideals of gal- 
lantry and chivalry which were nourished by the stories we loved in 
childhood, and by the tales of Scottish prowess, in prose and poetry, 
selected for the school-books in use by the children of the English- 
speaking peoples. 

Scotland has indeed been blessed by the possession of poets and 
bards who have preserved her annals and sung the deeds of her 
patriot heroes in so alluring a form, that her sons and daughters 



SCOTLAND— LADY ABERDEEN 85 

are assured of a welcome in any part of the world, and start with 
the great asset of being always expected to "make good" in every 
land of their adoption. Wherever they may roam, we find them 
occupying positions of influence, and still cherishing and promul- 
gating the traditions and the customs of the Land of the Heather, 
which impel to high thinking, resolute doing, and the upholding of 
old standards, such as build up the lives both of individuals and of 
nations. 

And thus, when the moment of emergency arrives when "to every 
man and nation comes the moment to decide" you will find the men 
and women of Scottish descent to the forefront in every fight for 
liberty and righteousness in every part of the globe. 

And in the midst of the clash and din of arms you will catch 
ever and anon the sound of the up-lifting cadence of some grand 
old Scottish Psalm tune, bringing comfort, and courage, and calm, 
— and then the call of the Pipes, inspiring war-worn troops to ac- 
complish impossible tasks, such as the feats which have made the 
Gordon Highlanders and their Pipers immortal — as at Dargai, and 
have brought fresh glory to many a Scottish Regiment in this great 
war — aye, and to many a regiment of brother Gaels from Ireland 
also, of whose exploits we have heard as they rushed into the fray, 
preceded by their Irish War-Pipes. 

A few weeks ago, a young widow with her two months' old baby 
in her arms, was following the remains of her husband to his war- 
rior's grave "somewhere in France." She was dry-eyed and rebel- 
lious in her youthful despair, as she walked at the head of the sad 
little procession of her husband's comrades; — and then the party 
met a Highland Pipe Band, whose Pipe-Major, quick to understand 
the situation, halted his men, wheeled them round, and gave the 
signal to play the lovely Lament: "Lochaber no more!" 

At the sound of the familiar strains the founts of sorrow were 



86 DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY 

unsealed, and weeping, but comforted, the child-wife mother was 
able to commit her dead hero's dust to the grave in sure and certain 
confidence of a glorious re-union, and turned to face life again with 
his little son, with strength and faith renewed. 

This is but a little incident, but it illustrates the hold that the 
music of the Gael has on the hearts of its children, and of its power 
to evoke memories and associations full of inspiration both in joy 
and in sorrow. 

And is not this the interpretation of the spell of the '' Kilties'' ? 



GREAT BRITAIN— MRS. LOWNDES 87 



SHERSTON'S WEDDING EVE 

IN THE gathering twilight a man stood at the eastern window of 
a room which formed the top story of one of the houses in 
Peter the Great Terrace — that survival from the early nineteenth 
century which forms a kind of recess in the broad thoroughfare 
linking Waterloo Bridge with the Strand. The man's name was 
Shirley Sherston, and among the happy, prosperous few who are 
concerned with such things, he was known for his fine, distin- 
guished work in domestic architecture. 

It was the evening of October 13, 1915, and Sherston was to be 
married to-morrow. 

Now, for what most people would have thought a puerile reason, 
that with him 13 had always proved a lucky number, he had much 
wished that to-day should be his wedding day. And Helen Pom- 
eroy, his future wife, who never thought anything he did or desired 
to do puerile or unreasonable, had been quite willing to fall in 
with his fancy. The lucky day had actually been chosen. Then 
a tiresome woman, a sister of Miss Pomeroy's mother, had said 
she could not be present at the marriage if it took place on the 
thirteenth, as on that day her son, who had been home on leave, 
was going back to the Front. She had also pointed out quite un- 
necessarily, that 13 is an unlucky number. 

Staring out into the gathering darkness, Sherston's stormy, 
eager heart began to quiver with longing, with regret, and with the 
half -painful rapture of anticipation. He had suddenly visioned — 
and Sherston was a man given to vivid visions — where he would 
have been now, at this moment, had his marriage indeed taken 
place this morning. He saw himself, on this beautiful starlit, 
moonless night, standing, along with his dear love, on the plat- 



88 DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY 

form of a medieval tower, which, together with the picturesque 
farmhouse which had been tacked on to the tower about a hun- 
dred years ago, rose, close to the seashore, on a lonely stretch of the 
Sussex coast. 

But what was not true to-night would be true to-morrow night, 
twenty-four hours from now. 

He had bought tower and house three years ago, and he had 
spent there many happy holidays, boating and fishing, alone, or in 
company of some man chum. Sherston had never thought to 
bring a woman there, for the morrow's bridegroom, for some six 
to seven years past, had had an impatient contempt for, as well as 
a fear of, women. 

Sherston was a widower, though he never used the word, even 
in his innermost heart, for to him the term connoted something 
slightly absurd, and he was sensitive to ridicule. 

Very few of the people at present acquainted with the brilliant, 
pleasantly eccentric architect, knew that he had been married be- 
fore. But of course the handful of old Bohemian comrades whom 
he had faithfully kept from out of the past, were well aware of 
the fact. They were not likely to forget it either, for whenever he 
was mentioned, each of them at once remembered that which at 
the time it had happened, Sherston had every reason to tell rather 
than to conceal, namely, that the woman who had been his wife had 
gone down with the Titanic. 

But how long ago that now seemed ! 

The outbreak of war, which caused so much unmerited misfor- 
tune to English artists and their like, and which at one moment had 
threatened to wreck his own successful opening career, had brought 
to Shirley Sherston a piece of marvelous good fortune. 

Early in that memorable August, 1914, at a time when the fabric 



GREAT BRITAIN— MRS. LOWNDES 89 

of his life and work seemed shattered, and when the lameness which 
he had so triumphantly coped with during his grown up life as to 
cause those about him scarcely to know it was there, made it out 
of the question for him to respond to his country's first call for 
men, the architect happened to run across James Pomeroy, a cul- 
tivated millionaire with whom he had once had a slight business 
relation. Acting on a kindly impulse which even now Mr. Pom- 
eroy hardly knew whether to remember with pleasure or regret, 
the older man had pressed the younger to spend a week in a country 
house which he had taken for the summer near London. 

That was now fourteen months ago, but Sherston, standing there, 
remembered as if it had happened yesterday, his first sight of the 
girl who was to become his wife to-morrow. Helen Pomeroy had 
been standing on a brick path bordered with hollyhocks, and she 
had smiled, a little shyly and gravely, at her father's rather eccen- 
tric-looking guest. But on that war-summer morning she had 
appeared to the stranger as does a mirage of spring water to a man 
who is dying of thirst in the desert. 

Up to that time Sherston had always supposed himself to be 
attracted to small women. He was a big, fair man, with loosely 
hung limbs, and his wife — poor little baggage — had been a tiny 
creature, vixenish at her worst, kittenish at her best. But Helen 
Pomeroy was tall, with the noble proportions and tapering limbs 
of a goddess, and gradually — not for some time, for all social life 
was dislocated in England during that strange summer — Sherston 
became aware, with a kind of angry revolt of soul, that he was but 
one of many worshipers at the shrine. 

Following an irresistible impulse, he early in their acquaintance 
told Helen Pomeroy more of himself than he had ever told any 
other human being; and his confidences at last included a bowdler- 



90 DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY 

ized account of his wretched marriage. But though they soon 
became friends, and though he went on seeing a great deal of her, 
all through that autumn and winter, Sherston feared to put his 
fate to the touch, and he was jealous — God alone knew how hid- 
eously, intolerably jealous — of the khaki-clad soldiers who came 
and went in her father's house in town. 

And then, one day, during the second summer of their acquaint- 
ance, a word let drop by Mr. Pomeroy, who had become fond of 
the odd, restless fellow, opened a pit before Sherston's feet. It 
was a word implying that now, at last, Helen's father and mother 
hoped she would "make up her mind." A very distinguished 
soldier, whom she had refused as a girl of twenty, had come 
back unchanged, after six years, from India, and Helen, or 
so her parents hoped and thought, was seriously thinking of 
him. 

Sherston had. kept away. He had even left two of her letters — 
the rather formal letters which had come to mean so very much in 
his life — unanswered. A fortnight had gone by, and then there 
had reached him a prim little note from Mrs. Pomeroy, asking 
him why he had not been to see them lately. There was a post- 
script: "If you do not come soon, you will not see my daughter. 
She has not been well, and we are thinking of sending her up to 
Scotland, to friends who are in Skye, for a good long holiday." 

He had gone to Cadogan Square (it was August 13th) as quickly 
as a taxi could take him, and by a blessed stroke of luck he had 
found Miss Pomeroy alone. In a flash all had come right between 
them. That had only been nine weeks ago, and now they were to 
be married to-morrow . . . 

Sherston had been standing a long time at that casement of his 
which commanded the huge gray mass of Somerset House, when 



GREAT BRITAIN— MRS. LOWNDES 91 

at last he turned round, and went quickly across the room to the 
other, western, window. 

Even in the gathering darkness what a faery view was there! 
Glad as he was to know that after to-night he would never again 
see this living room in its present familiar guise — for he had 
arranged with a furniture dealer to come and take everything left 
in it away, within an hour of his departure — he told himself that 
never again could he hope to live with such a view as that on which 
he was gazing out now. 

The yellowing branches of the trees which have their roots deep 
in the graveyard of the old Savoy Chapel formed, even in mid- 
October, a delicious screen of living, moving leaves. Far below, 
to his left, ran the river Thames, its rushing waters full of a mys- 
terious, darksome beauty, and illumined, here and there, with the 
quivering reflection of shadowed white, green and red lights. 
Sherston in his heart often blessed the Zeppelin scare which had 
banished the monstrous, flaring signs which, till a few months ago, 
had so off'ended his eyes each time that he looked out into the night, 
towards the water. 

The lease of a fine old house in Cheyne Walk had been chosen 
by Mr. Pomeroy as his daughter's wedding gift, and already cer- 
tain of Sherston's personal possessions had been moved there. But 
he was taking with him as little as was possible, and practically 
nothing from this memory -haunted room. 

It was the big, light, airy, loft-like apartment which had attracted 
him in these chambers fifteen years ago, when he had first come to 
London from the Midlands, at the age of three-and-twenty. It 
was here, five years later, that he had come straight back from the 
Soho Registry Office with the young woman whom he had quixot- 
ically drawn up out of a world — the nether world — ^where she had 
been happier than she could ever hope to become with him. For 



92 DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY 

Kitty Brawle — her very surname was symbolic — was one of those 
doomed creatures who love the mud, who never really wish to leave 
the mud — who feel scraped and sad when clean. 

Unhappy Sherston! The noblest thing he had ever done, or was 
ever likely to do, in his life, proved, for a time at least, his un- 
doing. Kitty had made him from generous mean, from unsus- 
pecting suspicious, and during the wretched year they had spent 
together she had had a disastrous effect on his work. At last, 
acting on the shrewd advice of one of those instinctive men of the 
world of which Bohemia is full, he had bought her a billet in a 
theatrical touring company. There, by an extraordinary chance, 
Kitty made a tiny hit — sufficiently of a hit to bring her from an 
American impresario a creditable offer, contingent on her fare 
being paid to the States. 

Gladly, how gladly only he himself had known — Sherston had 
taken her passage in the Titanic, Kitty's own characteristic 
choice of a boat. And he had done more. Though short of 
money, he had given Kitty a hundred pounds. 

Four days after their parting had come the astounding news of 
the sinking of the liner, followed, for Sherston, by a period of 
strange, painful suspense, filled with the eager scanning of lists, 
cables to and from America, finally terminated by an official inti- 
mation that poor Kitty had gone down in, and with, the ship. 

Sherston's imagination was inconveniently vivid, and for a few 
poignant weeks his wife's horrible end haunted him. But after 
a while he forced himself to take a long holiday in Greece, and 
from there he came back with his nerves in better order than they 
had ever been. 

Fate, which so seldom interferes with kindly intention in the 
lives of men, had cut what had become a strangling knot, and 
Kitty, from a dreadful, never-forgotten burden, had become a 



GREAT BRITAIN— MRS. LOWNDES 93 

rather touching, piteous memory, growing ever dimmer as first 
the months, and then the years, slipped by. 

Even so, her ghost sufficiently often haunted this large room, 
and the other apartments which composed Sherston's set of cham- 
bers, to make him determine that Miss Pomeroy should never come 
there. And she, being in this as unlike other, commonplace, 
young woman as she was in everything else, had never put him to 
the pain of finding an insincere excuse for his unwillingness to 
show her the place in which he lived and worked. . . . 

The coming night stretched long and bleak before to-morrow's 
bridegroom. There were fourteen hours to live through before 
he could even see Helen, for the time of the marriage had been 
fixed for eleven o'clock. 

Sherston was not looking forward to the actual ceremony — no 
man ever does; and though it was to be a war wedding, a great 
many people, as he was ruefully aware, had been bidden to the 
ceremony. But it was comfortable to know that none of the guests 
had been asked to go back to the house from which he and his bride 
were to start for Sussex at one o'clock, in the motor which was Mrs. 
Pomeroy's marriage gift to her daughter. 

Suddenly Sherston discovered that he was very hungry! He 
had lunched in Cadogan Square at a quarter to two, but he had felt 
too inwardly excited in that queer atmosphere of tears and laugh- 
ter, of trousseau and wedding presents, to eat. 

Even the least earthly of Romantics cannot forget for long the 
claims of the flesh, and so, smiling a little wryly in the darkness, 
he now told himself that the best thing he could do was to go out 
and get some supper. Acquainted with all the eating houses in 
the region, he was glad indeed that after to-night he would never 
have to enter one again. 



94 DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY 

Pulling down the green blind in front of him, Sherston walked 
across the room and pulled down the blind of the other window, 
for the London lighting orders had become much stricter of late. 
Then he turned on the electric light switch, took up his hat and 
stick, and went out into the little lobby. 

Before him was a narrow aperture which opened straight on to 
the steep, short flight of steps connecting his chambers with the 
stone staircase of the big old house. This latter-like set of steps 
had a door top and bottom, but the lower door, which gave on to the 
landing, was generally left open. Turning out the light in the 
lobby, Sherston put his left hand on the bannister and slid down 
in the darkness, taking the dozen steps as it were in one stride. 

As he reached the bottom he suddenly became aware that the 
door before him, that giving on to the landing, was shut, and that 
some one, almost certainly a child — for there was not room on the 
mat for a full-grown person — was crouching down just within 
the door. 

Sherston felt sharply, perhaps unreasonably, irritated. Known 
in the neighborhood as open-handed and kindly, it had sometimes 
happened, but generally only in wintry weather, that he had come 
home to find some poor waif lying in wait for him. Man, woman 
or child who had wandered in, maybe, before the big door down- 
stairs was closed, or who, if still blessed with some outer sem- 
blance of gentility, had managed cunningly to get past the Cerberus 
who lived in the basement, and whose duty it was to open the front 
door, after eight at night, to non-residents. 

He felt in his pocket for half-a-crown, and then, pretending still 
to be unaware that there was any one there, he fumbled for the 
spring lock. 

The door burst open — he saw before him the shaft of glimmer- 
ing whiteness shed by the skylight, for since the Zeppelin raid of 



GREAT BRITAIN— MRS. LOWNDES 95 

the month before, the staircase was always left in darkness — and 
the figure of his unknown guest rolled over, picked itself up, and 
stood revealed, a woman, not a child, as he had at first thought. 
And then a feeling of sick, shrinking fear came over Sherston, for 
there fell on his ears the once horribly familiar accents — plaintive, 
wheedling, falsely timorous — of his dead wife's voice . . . 

"Is that you, Shirley? I didn't know that you was at home. 
The windows were all dark, and — " In an injured tone this: 
"I've been waiting here ever so long for you to come in!" 

The wraith-like figure before him was only too clearly flesh and 
blood, and, as he stepped forward, it moved quickly across, and 
stood, barring his way, on the top stone step of the big staircase. 

Sherston remained silent. He could think of nothing to say. 
But his mind began to work with extraordinary rapidity and 
lucidity. 

There was only one thing to do, here and now. That was to 
give the woman standing there a little money — not much — and tell 
her to come back again the next day. Having thus got rid of her 
— he knew that on no account must she be allowed to stay here the 
night — he must go at once to Mr. Pomeroy and tell him of this 
terrible, hitherto unimaginable, calamity. He told himself that 
it would be, if not exactly easy, then certainly possible to arrange 
a divorce. 

Determinedly, in these tense, terrible moments, he refused to 
let himself face the coming anguish and dismay of the morrow. 
It was just a blow, straight between the eyes from fate — that fate 
who he had foolishly thought had been kind. 

"Well? Are you going to let me stand here all night?" 

"No, of course not. Wait a minute — I'm thinking." He spoke 
in a quick, hoarse tone, a tone alas! which Kitty at one time in their 
joint lives had come to associate with deep feeling on his part. 



96 DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY 

in those days when she used to come and tell the lonely man of her 
sorrows, of her temptations, and of her vague, upward aspira- 
tions. . . . 

She lurched a little towards him. Everything was going far 
better than she could have hoped; why, Sherston did not seem 
angry, hardly annoyed, at her unheralded return! 

Suddenly he felt her thin, strong arms closing round his body, 
in a horrible vice-like grip — 

"Don't touch me!" he cried fiercely; and making a greater 
physical effort than he would have thought himself capable of, 
he shook himself violently free. 

He saw her reel backwards and fall, with a queer grotesque 
movement, head over heels down the stone steps. The dull thud 
her body made as she fell on the half landing echoed up and 
down the bare well of the staircase. 

Sherston's heart smote him. He had not meant to do that. 
Then he reminded himself bitterly that drunkards always fall 
soft. She could not have hurt herself much, falling that little way. 

He waited a few moments; then, as she made no effort to raise 
herself, he walked down, slowly, unwillingly, towards her. From 
the little he could see in the dim light cast from above, Kitty 
was lying very oddly, all in a heap, her head against the wall. 

He knelt down by her side. 

"Kitty," he said quietly. "Try and get up. I'm sorry if I 
hurt you, but you took me by surprise. I — I — " 

But there came no word, no moan even, in answer. 

He felt for her limp hand, and held it a moment, but it lay in 
his, inertly. Filled with a queer, growing fear, he struck a match, 
bent down, and saw, for the first time that night, her face. It 
looked older, incredibly older, than when he had last seen it, five 
years ago! The hair near the temples had turned gray. Her 



GREAT BRITAIN— MRS. LOWNDES 97 

eyes were wide open — and even as he looked earnestly into her 
face, her jaw suddenly dropped. He started back with an extraor- 
dinary feeling of mingled fear and repugnance. 

Striking match after match as he went, he rushed up again into 
his chambers, and looked about for a hand mirror. . . . He failed 
to find one, and at last he brought down his shaving glass. 

With shaking hands he laid it close against that hideous, gaping 
mouth, for five long dragging minutes. The glass remained clear, 
untarnished. 

Putting a great constraint on himself, he forced himself to move 
her head. And then the truth came to him ! In that strange short 
fall Kitty had broken her neck. For the second time he was free. 
But this time her death, instead of cutting a knot, bound him as 
with cords of twisted steel to shame, and yes, to deadly peril. 

Slowly he got up from his knees. Unless he went and jumped 
over the parapet of the Embankment into the river — a possibility 
which he grimly envisaged for a few moments — ^he knew that the 
only thing to do was to go off at once for the police, and make, as 
the saying is, a clean breast of it. After all he was innocent — 
innocent of even a secret desire of encompassing Kitty's death. 
But would it be possible to make even the indifferent, when aware 
of all the circumstances, believe that? Yes, there was one such 
human being — and as he thought of her his heart glowed with 
gratitude to God for having made her known to him. Helen would 
believe him, Helen would understand everything — and nothing else 
really mattered. It was curious how the thought of Helen, which 
had been agony an hour ago, now filled him with a kind of stead- 
fast comfort. 

As Sherston turned to go down the staircase, there came the 
distant sound of the bursting of a motor tire, and the unhappy 



98 DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY 

man started violently. His nerves were now in pieces, but he 
remembered, as he went down the stone steps, to feel in one of his 
pockets, to be sure he had what he so seldom used, a card-case 
on him. 

On reaching the front door he was surprised to find it open, 
and to see just within the hall, their white caps and pale faces 
dimly illumined by the little light that glimmered in from outside, 
two trained nurses with bags in their hands. They were talking 
eagerly, and took no notice of him as he passed. 

For a moment Sherston wondered whether he ought to tell them 
of the terrible accident which had just happened upstairs — but 
after a momentary hesitation he decided that it would be better 
to go straight off to the Police Station. Already his excited brain 
saw a nurse standing in the witness-box at a trial where he himself 
stood in the dock on a charge of murder. So, past the two whis- 
pering women, he hurried out into the darkness. 

Even in the grievous state of mental distress in which he now 
found himself, Sherston noticed that the street lamps were turned 
so low that there only shone out, under their green shades, pallid 
spots of light. And as he stumbled across the curb of the pave- 
ment, he told himself, with irritation, that that was really rather 
absurd! More accidents proceeded from the absence of light than 
were ever likely to be caused by Zeppelins. 

Perforce walking warily, he hastened towards the Strand. 
There was less traffic than usual, fewer people, too, on the pave- 
ment, but it was just after nine o'clock, the quietest time of the 
evening. 

Suddenly a huge column of flame shot up some thirty yards in 
front of him, and then (it seemed to all to happen in a moment) 
a line of men, police and special constables, spread across the 
thoroughfare in which he now was, barring off the Strand. 



GREAT BRITAIN— MRS. LOWNDES 99 

Sherston quickened his footsteps. For a moment his own dis- 
turbed and fearsome thoughts were banished by the extraordinary 
and exciting sight before him. Higher and higher mounted the 
pillar of fire, throwing a sinister glare on the buildings, high 
and low, new and old, round about it. "Good Heavens!" he 
exclaimed involuntarily. "Is that the Lyceum on fire?" A po- 
liceman near whom he was now standing, turned round and said 
shortly, "Can't say, I'm sure, sir." 

He witnessed in the next few minutes a strange scene of con- 
fusion, of hurrying and scurrying hither and thither. Where 
there had been almost pitch darkness, was now a glittering, bril- 
liant bath of light, in which the figures of men and women, moving 
swiftly to and fro, appeared like animated silhouettes. But even 
as he stared before him at the extraordinary Hogarthian vision, 
the roadway and the pavements of the Strand became strangely 
and suddenly deserted, while he began to hear the hoot, hoot of the 
fire-engines galloping to the scene of the disaster. Before him 
the line of police and of special constables remained unbroken, 
and barred his further progress. 

"I don't want to go past the theater," he whispered urgently. "I 
only want to get to Bow Street, as quickly as possible, on a very 
important matter." He slipped the half-crown he had meant to 
give the waif he had taken Kitty to be, into a policeman's hand, 
and though the man shook his head he let him through. 

Sherston shot down the Strand, to his left. Almost filling up 
the steep, lane-like street which leads down to the Savoy Hotel, 
were rows of ambulances, groups of nurses, and Red Cross men, 
and absorbed though he was once more in his own sensations, and 
the thought of the terrible ordeal that lay in front of him, Sherston 
yet found himself admiring the quickness with which they had 
been rushed hither. 



100 DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY 

On he went, and crossed the empty roadway. How strange 
that so little attention was being paid to the fire! Instead of a 
hurrying mob of men and women, the Strand was now extraor- 
dinarily empty, both of people and of vehicles, and now and again 
he could hear the sound of knocking, of urgent knocking, as of 
some one who has been locked out, and is determined to be let in. 

He strode quickly along, feeling his way somewhat, for apart 
from the reflection of the red sky, it was pitch dark in the side 
streets, and soon he stood before the Police Station. The big old- 
fashioned building was just within the outer circle of light cast by 
the huge fire whose fierceness seemed to increase rather than di- 
minish, and Sherston suddenly espied an Inspector standing half in 
the open door. "I've some very urgent business," he said hur- 
riedly. "Could you come inside for a moment, and take down a 
statement?" 

"What's your business about?" said the man sharply, and in 
the wavering light Sherston thought his face looked oddly dis- 
traught and pale. 

"There's a woman lying dead at No. 19 Peter the Great Ter- 
race," began Sherston curtly — 

The man bent forward. "There's many women already lying 
dead about here, sir, and likely to be more — babies and children 
too — before we're through with this hellish business!" he said 
grimly. "If she's dead, poor thing, we can do nothing for her. 
But if you think there's any life left in her — well, you'll find 
plenty of ambulances, as well as doctors and nurses, down Strand 
way. But if I was you, I'd wait a bit before going back. They're 
still about — " and even as he uttered the word "about" he started 
back into the shelter of the building, pulling Sherston roughly in 
with him as he did so, and there came a loud, dull report, curi- 
ously analogous to that which a quarter of an hour ago — it 



GREAT BRITAIN— MRS. LOWNDES 101 

seemed hours rather than minutes — Sherston had taken for the 
bursting of a motor tire. But this time the sound was at once 
followed by that of shattered glass, and of falling masonry. 

"Good God!" he cried. "What's that?" 

"A goodish lot of damage this time, I should think," said the 
Inspector thoughtfully. "Though they're doing wonderfully little 
considering how they — " 

"Theyr 

"Zeppelins, of course, sir! Why, didn't you guess that? They 
say there're two over us if not three." Then in a voice, so changed, 
so charged with relief, that his own mother would not have known 
it for the same, the man exclaimed, "Look up, sir — there they are! 
And they're off — the hellish things!" And Sherston, throwing up 
his head, did indeed see what looked to his astonished eyes like 
two beautiful golden trout swimming across the sky just above 
him. 

As he stood awestruck, fascinated at the astounding sight, he 
also saw what looked like a falling star shoot down from one of 
the Zeppelins, and again there fell on his ears that strange ex- 
plosive thud. 

The man by his side uttered a stifled oath. "There's another 
— let's hope it's the last in this district!" he exclaimed. "See! 
They're off" down the river now!" 

Even as he said the words the space in front of the Police Sta- 
tion was suddenly filled with a surging mass of people, men, 
women, even children, making their way Strandward, to see all 
that there was to see, now that the immediate danger was past. 

"If I were you, sir, I think I'd stay here quietly a bit, till the 
crowd has thinned, and been driven back. I take it you can't 
do that poor woman of whom you spoke just now any good — 
I take it she's dead, sir?" the Inspector spoke very feelingly. 



102 DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY 

"Yes, she certainly is dead," said Sherston dully. 

"Well, I must be going now, but if you like to stay here a while, 
I'm sure you're welcome, sir." 

"No," said Sherston. "I think I'll go out and see whether I 
can do anything to help." 

The two passed out into the roadway, and took their place 
among the slowly moving people there, the Inspector making a 
way for himself and his companion through the excited, talkative, 
good-humored Cockney crowd. "There it is! Can't you see it? 
Up there just like a little yellow worm." "There's naught at all! 
You've got the cobble-wobbles!" and then a ripple of laughter. 

Sherston was borne along with the human stream, and with that 
stream he suddenly found himself stopped at the westward end of 
Wellington Street. Over the heads of the people before him — 
they were, oddly enough, mostly women — he could see the column 
of flame still burning steadily upwards, and scarcely affected at 
all by the huge jets of water now playing on it. 

It seemed to start from the ground, a massive pillar of fire, 
and all round it was an empty space — a zone no human being 
could approach for fear of being at once roasted and shriveled 
up to death. "The bomb got down to the big gas main," observed . 
a voice close to him. "It'll be days before they get that fire 
under!" 

He, Sherston, felt marvelously calm. This strange, awful visi- 
tation had made for him a breathing space in which to reconsider 
what he had better do, and suddenly he decided that he would go 
and consult Mr. Pomeroy. But before doing that he must force 
himself to go back and fetch certain documents which fortunately 
he had kept. . . . 

He made his way, with a great deal of difficulty — for it was as 
if all London had by now flocked to this one afflicted area — by a 



GREAT BRITAIN— MRS. LOWNDES 103 

circuitous way to the Strand. Tramping through a six-inch-deep 
flood of broken glass he made his way by the Embankment and 
the Waterloo Bridge steps to the upper level, that leading to, and 
past, Peter the Great Terrace. 

A vast host was now westward from over the river, and he felt 
the electric currents of joyous excitement, retrospective fear, and, 
above all, of eager, almost ferocious, curiosity, linking up rap- 
idly about him. The rough and ready cordon of special constables 
seemed powerless to dam the human tide, and caught in that 
tide's eddies, Sherston struggled helplessly. 

"Let me through," he shouted at last. "I must get through!" 

"You can't get through just here — there's a house been struck in 
Peter the Great Terrace! 'Twas the last bomb did it!" 

Sherston uttered a groan — Ah! If only that were true! But 
he had just now glanced up and seen the row of big substantial 
eighteenth century houses, of which his was the end one, solidly 
outlined against the star-powdered sky, though every pane of glass 
had been blown out. 

Then some one turned round. "It's the comer house been 
struck. Bomb fell right tlirough the skylight. They've sent for 
the firemen to see what damage was done. You can't see anything 
from this side." 

Through the skylight? 

Sherston was a powerful man. He forced his way, he did not 
know how, blindly, to the very front of the crowd. 

Yes, there were two firemen standing by the low, sunk-in door, 
that door through which he had come and gone hundreds, nay 
thousands, of times, in his life. So much was true, but every- 
thing else was as usual. "I live here," he said hoarsely. "Will 
you let me through?" 

The fireman shook his head. "No, sir. I can't let any one 



104 DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY 

through. And if I did 'twould be no good. The staircase is 
clean gone — a great big stone staircase, too! It's all in bits, just 
like a lot of rubble. The front of the house ain't touched, but 
the center and behind — well, sir, you never did see such a sight!" 

"Any one hurt?" asked Sherston in a strangled tone. He felt 
a most extraordinary physical sensation of lightness — of — of — 
was it dissolution? — sweep over his mind and body. He heard 
as in a far away dream the answer to his question. 

"There was no one in the house at all, from what we can make 
out. The caretaker had a lucky escape, or he'd be buried alive 
by now, but he and his missus had already gone out to see the 
sights." 

A moment later the fireman was holding Sherston in his big 
brawny arms, and shouting "An ambulance this way — send along 
a nurse please — gentleman's fainted!" The crowd parted eagerly, 
respectfully. "Poor feller!" exclaimed one woman in half piteous, 
half furious tones. "Those damned Germans — they've gone and 
destroyed the poor chap's little all. I heard him explaining just 
now as what he lived here!" 



CANADA— CONNOR 105 



A CANADIAN SOLDIER'S DOMINION DAY AT 
SHORNCLIFFE 



''TS THERE a holiday next Thursday?" inquired a Canadian 
X officer of an English confrere. 

"A holiday? Not that I know of. Why should there be?" 
"Why? Because it's Dominion Day." 
"Dominion Day?" blankly echoed the English Officer. 
"Yes! Did you never hear of it, you benighted Islander?" 
"I really am afraid not," replied the English Officer, convicted 

by the Canadian's tone of nothing less than crime. "Just what 

is it?" 

"Perhaps you have never heard of Canada?" 

"Well, rather, we hear something of Canada these days." 

Then, as the light began to break in on his darkened soul, "Ah, 

I see, that is your Canadian National Day, is it not?" 

"It is. And the question is Are we going to have a holiday?' " 
"Well, you see the King specially requested that there be no 

holiday on his birthday." 

"The King's birthday! Oh, that's all right — but this is differ- 
ent, you see." 

The Englishman looked mildly surprised. 

"Oh, the King's all right," continued the Canadian, answering 

the other's look, "we think a lot of him these days. But — you 

know — Dominion Day — " 

"I hope you may get it, old chap, but I fancy we are in for the 

usual grind." 

The Canadian officer had little objection to the grind nor had 

his men. The Canadians eat up work. But somehow it did not 

seem right that the 1st of July slide past without celebration of any 



106 DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY 

kind. He had memories of that day, of its early morning hours 
when a kid he used to steal down stairs to let off a few firecrackers 
from his precious bunch just to see how they would go. Latterly 
he had not cared for the fireworks part of it except for the Kiddies. 
But somehow he was conscious of a new interest in Canada's birth- 
day. Perhaps because Canada was so far away and the Kiddies 
would be wanting some one to set off their crackers. It was good 
to be in England, the beautiful old motherland, but it was not Can- 
ada and it did not seem right that Canada's birthday should be 
allowed to pass unmarked. So too thought the Commandant of the 
Shomcliffe Camp, a right good Canadian he. 

"I have arranged a Tattoo for the evening," he announced in 
conversation with the Canadian Officer the day before the First. 

"What about a holiday. Colonel?" The Commandant shook his 
head. 

"Well, then, a half-holiday?" 

"No. At least," remembering the officer's ancestry and that he 
was a Canadian Highlander, "not officially, whateffer." 

"Shall I get a rope for the Tug of War, do you think?" 

"I think," replied the Commandant slowly with a wink in his 
left eye, "you might get the rope." 

This was sufficient encouragement for the 43rd to go on with 
and so the rope was got and vaulting pole and standards with other 
appurtenances of a day of sports. And the preparations went 
bravely on. So also went on the Syllabus which for Dominion 
Day showed, Company Drill, Instruction Classes, Lectures, Physi- 
cal for the forenoon, Bayonet fighting and Route marching for 
the afternoon. 

"All right, let her go," and so the fields and plains, the lanes and 
roads are filled with Canadian soldiers celebrating their Dominion 
Day, drilling, bayonet fighting, route marching, while overhead 



CANADA— CONNOR 107 

soars thrumming the watchful airship, Britain's eye. For Britain 
has a business on hand. Just yonder stretches the misty sea where 
unsleeping lie Britain's men of war. Beyond the sea bleeding 
Belgium has bloodsoaked ground crying to Heaven long waiting 
but soon at length to hear. And France fiercely, proudly proving 
her right to live an independent nation. And Germany. Ger- 
many! the last word in intellectual power, in industrial achieve- 
ment, in scientific research, aye and in infamous brutality! Ger- 
many, the mighty modern Hun, the highly scienced barbarian of 
this twentieth Century, more bloody than Attila, more ruthless than 
his savage hordes. Germany doomed to destruction because free- 
dom is man's inalienable birthright, man's undying passion. Ger- 
many! fated to execration by future generations for that she has 
crucified the Son of God afresh and put Him to an open shame. 
Germany! for the balking of whose insolent and futile ambition, 
and for the crushing of whose archaic military madness we Cana- 
dians are tramping on this Dominion Day these English fields and 
these sweet English lanes 5,000 miles from our Western Canada 
which dear land we can not ever see again if this monstrous threat- 
ening cloud be not removed forever from our sky. For this it is 
that 100,000 Canadian citizens have left their homes with 500,000 
eager more to follow if needed, other sons of the Empire knit in 
one firm resolve that once more Freedom shall be saved for the 
race as by their sires in other days. 

But the Tattoo is on — the ground chosen is the little plateau 
within the lines of the 43rd just below the Officers' tents, flanked on 
one side by a sloping grassy hill on the other by a row of ancient 
trees shading a little hidden brook that gurgles softly to itself all 
day long. On the sloping hill the soldiers of the various battalions 
lie stretched at ease in khaki-colored kilts and trews, caps and 
bonnets, except the men of the 43rd who wear the dark blue Glen- 



108 DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY 

garry. In the center of the plateau a platform invites attention 
and on each side facing it rows of chairs for officers and their 
friends, among the latter some officers' wives, happy creatures and 
happy officers to have them so near and not 5,000 miles away. 

The Commandant has been called away on a sad business, a 
soldier's funeral, hence the Junior Major of the 43rd as chairman 
of that important and delicately organized Committee of the 
Bandmasters and Pipe Majors of the various battalions is in 
charge of the program. Major Grassie is equal to the occasion, 
quiet, ready, resourceful. With him associated is Major Watts, 
Adjutant of the 9th, as Musical Director; in peaceful times or- 
ganist and choir master of a Presbyterian congregation in Edmon- 
ton far away. 

Bang! Bang! Bang! 

Bang! Bang! Bang! 

The drums in the distance begin to throb and from the eastern 
side of the plain march in the band of the 9th playing their Regi- 
mental march, Garry Owen, none the less. From the west the band 
of the 11th, then that of the 12th, finally (for the 43rd Band is 
away on leave, worse luck) the splendid Band of the 49th, each 
playing its own Regimental march which is taken up by the bands 
already in position. Next comes the massed buglers of all the 
regiments, their thrilling soaring notes rising above the hills, and 
take their stand beside the bands already in place. Then a pause, 
when from round the hill shoulder rise wild and weird sounds. 
The music of the evening, to Scottish hearts and ears, has begun. 
It is the fine pipe band of the 42nd Royal Highlanders from Mon- 
treal, khaki clad, kilts and bonnets, and blowing proudly and 
defiantly their "Wha saw the Forty-twa." Again a pause and from 
the other side of the hill gay with tartan and blue bonnets, their 
great booming drones gorgeous with flowing streamers and silver 



CANADA— CONNOR 109 

mountings, in march the 43rd Camerons. "Man, wouldn't Alex 
Macdonald be proud of his pipes to-day," says a Winnipeg High- 
lander for these same pipes are Alex's gift to the 43rd, and 
harkening to these great booming drones I agree. 

Ah these pipes! These Highland pipers! Truly as one of them 
said, "Pipers are no just like other people!" Blowing their Pil- 
rock of Donald Dhu they swing into line, mighty and magnificent. 
Last comes the brave little pipe band of the 49th. This battalion 
has one Scotch company from Edmonton, which insisted on bring- 
ing its pipe band along. Why not? The Blue Bonnets is their 
tune and finely they ring it out. Now they are all in place, Bands, 
Bugle and Pipes. The massed Bands strike up our National Song, 
and all the soldiers spring to their feet and sing Oh, Canada. A 
little high but our hearts were in it. And so the program goes on. 
Single bands and massed bands with solos from French Horns, 
Trombones and Cornets, varied delightfully with the Highland 
Fling by Pipe Major Johnson of the 42nd, and the Sword Dance 
by Piper Reid of the 43rd followed by an encore, the Shean Trheubs 
which I defy any mere Sassenach to pronounce or to dance, at 
least as Piper Heid of the twinkling feet danced it that night. For 
he did it "in the style of Willie Maclennan," as a piper said, "the 
best of his day and they have not matched him yet." The massed 
pipe bands play The 79th's Farewell to Gibraltar. Forty-one 
pipers and every man blowing his best. "Aye man, it is grand 
hearing you," said a man from the north. Colonel Moore of the 
9th, on a minute's warning, makes a fine speech instinct with 
patriotic sentiment and calls for three cheers for Canada. He got 
three and a tiger and "a tiger's pup." Major Grassie in another 
speech neat and to the point thanks those who had helped to cele- 
brate our Dominion Day and once more calls for cheers and gets 
them. Then the First Post warns us that we are soldiers and 



110 DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY 

under orders. The massed bands play Nearer My God to Thee. 
Full and tender the long drawn notes of the great hymn rise and 
fall on the evening air, the soldiers joining reverently. The 
Chaplain of the 43rd congratulates the Commandant upon the happy 
suggestion of a Tattoo, the Chairman upon his very successful 
program and all the Company upon a very happy celebration of 
our national holiday — then a word about our Day and all it 
stands for, a word about our Empire, our Country, our Kiddies at 
home, another word of thanks to the Committee for the closing 
hymn so eminently appropriate to their present circumstances and 
then God bless our King, God bless our Empire, God bless our 
Great Cause and God bless our dear Canada. Good night. 

The Last Post sounds. Its piercing call falls sharp and start- 
ling upon the silent night. Long after we say "Good night" that 
last long-drawn note high and clear with its poignant pathos lingers 
in our hearts. The Dominion Day celebration is over. 




(^^^(F 



*-t*— trA.J 



CANADA— LEACOCK 111 

SIMPLE AS DAY 

IT WAS among the retorts and test-tubes of his physical labora- 
tory that we were privileged to interview the Great Scientist. 
His back was towards us when we entered. With characteristic 
modesty he kept it so for some time after our entry. Even when 
he turned round and saw us his face did not react off us as we 
should have expected. 

He seemed to look at us, if such a thing were possible, without 
seeing us, or, at least, without wishing to see us. 

We handed him our card. 

He took it, read it, dropped it into a bowlful of sulphuric acid, 
and then, with a quiet gesture of satisfaction, turned again to his 
work. 

We sat for some time behind him. "This then," we thought 
to ourselves (we always think to ourselves when we are left alone) 
"is the man, or rather is the back of the man, who has done more" 
(here we consulted die notes given us by our editor) "to revolu- 
tionize our conception of atomic dynamics than the back of any 
other man." 

Presently the Great Scientist turned towards us with a sigh 
that seemed to our ears to have a note of weariness in it. Some- 
thing, we felt, must be making him tired. 

"What can I do for you?" he said. 

"Professor," we answered, "we have called upon you in re- 
sponse to an overwhelming demand on the part of the public — " 

The Great Scientist nodded. 
" — to learn something of your new researches and discoveries 
in — " (here we consulted a minute card which we carried in our 
pocket) " — in radio-active-emanations which are already be- 



112 DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY 

coming — " (we consulted our card again) " — a household 
word — " 

The professor raised his hand as if to check us — 

"I would rather say," he murmured, "helio-radio-active — " 

"So would we," we admitted, "much rather — " 

"After all," said the Great Scientist, "helium shares in the 
most intimate degree the properties of radium. So, too, for the 
matter of that," he added in afterthought, "do thorium, and 
borium!" 

"Even borium!" we exclaimed, delighted, and writing rapidly 
in our note book. Already we saw ourselves writing up as our 
headline Borium Shares Properties of Thorium. 

"Just what is it," said the Great Scientist, "that you want to 
know?" 

"Professor," we answered, "what our journal wants is a plain 
and simple explanation, so clear that even our readers can under- 
stand it, of the new scientific discoveries in radium. We under- 
stand that you possess more than any other man the gift of clear 
and lucid thought — " 

The Professor nodded. 
" — and that you are able to express yourself with greater simplicity 
than any two men now lecturing." 

The Professor nodded again. 

"Now, then," we said, spreading our notes on our knee, "go at 
it. Tell us, and, through us, tell a quarter of a million anxious 
readers just what all these new discoveries are about." 

"The whole thing," said the Professor, warming up to his work 
as he perceived from the motions of our face and ears our 
intelligent interest, "is simplicity itself. I can give it to you in 
a word — " 



CANADA— LEACOCK 113 

"That's it," we said. "Give it to us that way." 

"It amounts, if one may boil it down into a phrase — " 

"Boil it, boil it," we interrupted. 

" — amounts, if one takes the mere gist of it — " 

"Take it," we said, "take it." 

" — amounts to the resolution of the ultimate atom." 

"Ha!" we exclaimed. 

"I must ask you first to clear your mind," the Professor con- 
tinued, "of all conception of ponderable magnitude." 

We nodded. We had already cleared our mind of this. 

"In fact," added the Professor, with what we thought a quiet 
note of warning in his voice, "I need hardly tell you that what 
we are dealing with must be regarded as altogether ultra-micro- 
scopic." 

We hastened to assure the professor that, in accordance with the 
high standards of honor represented by our journal, we should of 
course regard anything that he might say as ultra-microscopic and 
treat it accordingly. 

"You say, then," we continued, "that the essence of the problem 
is the resolution of the atom. Do you think you can give us any 
idea of what the atom is?" 

The professor looked at us searchingly. 

We looked back at him, openly and frankly. The moment was 
critical for our interview. Could he do it? Were we the kind of 
person that he could give it to? Could we get it if he did? 

"I think I can," he said. "Let us begin with the assumption 
that the atom is an infinitesimal magnitude. Very good. Let us 
grant, then, that though it is imponderable and indivisible it must 
have a spacial content? You grant me this?" 

"We do," we said, "we do more than this, we give it to you." 

"Very well. If spacial, it must have dimension: if dimension 



114 DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY 

— form : let us assume ex hypothesi the form to be that of a spheroid 
and see where it leads us." 

The professor was now intensely interested. He walked to and 
fro in his laboratory. His features worked with excitement. 
We worked ours, too, as sympathetically as we could. 

"There is no other possible method in inductive science," he 
added, "than to embrace some hypothesis, the most attractive that 
one can find, and remain with it — " 

We nodded. Even in our own humble life after our day's work 
we had found this true. 

"Now," said the Professor, planting himself squarely in front 
of us, "assuming a spherical form, and a spacial content, assum- 
ing the dynamic forces that are familiar to us and assuming — 
the thing is bold, I admit — " 

We looked as bold as we could. 

" — assuming that the ions, or nuclei of the atom — I know no 
better word — " 

"Neither do we," we said. 

" — that the nuclei move under the energy of such forces what 
have we got?" 

"Ha!" we said. 

"What have we got? Why, the simplest matter conceivable. 
The forces inside our atom — itself, mind you, the function of a 
circle — mark that — " 

We did. 

" — becomes merely a function of t^!" 

The Great Scientist paused with a laugh of triumph. 

"A function of t^^!" we repeated in delight. 

"Precisely. Our conception of ultimate matter is reduced to 
that of an oblate spheroid described by the revolution of an ellipse 
on its own minor axis!" 



CANADA— LEACOCK 115 

"Good heavens!" we said, "merely that." 

"Nothing else. And in that case any further calculation be- 
comes a mere matter of the extraction of a root." 

"How simple," we murmured. 

"Is it not?" said the Professor. "In fact, I am accustomed, in 
talking to my class, to give them a very clear idea, by simply 
taking as our root F, — F being any finite constant — " 

He looked at us sharply. We nodded. 

"And raising F to the log of infinity ; — I find they apprehend it 
very readily." 

"Do they?" we murmured. Ourselves we felt as if the Log of 
Infinity carried us to ground higher than what we commonly care 
to tread on. 

"Of course," said the Professor, "the Log of Infinity is an Un- 
known." 

"Of course," we said, very gravely. We felt ourselves here in 
the presence of something that demanded our reverence. 

"But still," continued the Professor, almost jauntily, "we can 
handle the Unknown just as easily as anything else." 

This puzzled us. We kept silent. We thought it wiser to move 
on to more general ground. In any case, our notes were now 
nearly complete. 

"These discoveries, then," we said, "are absolutely revolu- 
tionary." 

"They are," said the Professor. 

"You have now, as we understand, got the atom — how shall we 
put it? — got it where you want it." 

"Not exactly," said the Professor with a sad smile. 

"What do you mean?" we asked. 

"Unfortunately our analysis, perfect though it is, stops short. 
We have no synthesis." 



116 DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY 

The Professor spoke as in deep sorrow. 

"No synthesis," we moaned. We felt it was a cruel blow. But 
in any case our notes were now elaborate enough. We felt that 
our readers could do without a synthesis. We rose to go. 

"Synthetic dynamics," said the Professor, taking us by the coat, 
"is only beginning — " 

"In that case — " we murmured, disengaging his hand — 

"But wait, wait," he pleaded, "wait for another fifty years — " 

"We will," we said, very earnestly, "but meantime as our paper 
goes to press this afternoon we must go now. In fifty years we 
will come back." 

"Oh, I see, I see," said the Professor, "you are writing all this 
for a newspaper. I see." 

"Yes," we said, "we mentioned that at the beginning." 

"Ah!" said the Professor, "did you? Very possibly. Yes." 

"We propose," we said, "to feature the article for next Sat- 
urday." 

"Will it be long?" he asked. 

"About two columns," we answered. 

"And how much," said the Professor in a hesitating way, "do I 
have to pay you to put it in?" 

"How much which?" we asked. 

"How much do I have to pay?" 

"Why, Professor," we began quickly. Then we checked our- 
selves. After all was it right to undeceive him, this quiet, ab- 
sorbed man of science with his ideals, his atoms and his emana- 
tions? No, a hundred times no. Let him pay a hundred 
times. 

"It will cost you," we said very firmly, "ten dollars." 

The Professor began groping among his apparatus. We knew 
that he was looking for his purse. 



CANADA— LE ACOCK 117 

"We should like also very much," we said, "to insert your pic- 
ture along with the article — " 

"Would that cost much?" he asked. 

"No, that is only five dollars." 

The Professor had meantime found his purse. 

"Would it be all right," he began, " — that is, would you mind 
if I pay you the money now? I am apt to forget." 

"Quite all right," we answered. We said good-by very gently 
and passed out. We felt somehow as if we had touched a higher 
life. "Such," we murmured, as we looked about the ancient 
campus, "are the men of science: are there, perhaps, any others 
of them round this morning that we might interview?" 



-^ ^^-AA^ao/^ <^ (>v cJK. 



118 DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY 

THE EPIC STANDPOINT IN THE WAR 

AFTER more than three years of the War, we are only now 
beginning to see it, as it is, in its epic immensity. On the 
eastern front it has been too far from us; on the western front it 
has been too near us, and we have been too much a part of it, to 
get any sight at all of that series of monotonous and monstrous 
battles, a series punctuated only by names: Liege, Antwerp, Mons, 
Ypres, Verdun and Arras. And if nothing had happened besides 
the Titanic conflict of material armaments I believe that we should 
not yet be anywhere near realizing its vastness and its significance. 

If we are aware of it now it is because, in the last few months, 
three events have happened which are of another order: the abdi- 
cation of Constantine, King of Greece, the Russian Revolution, 
and the coming of America into the War. 

These three events have adjusted and cleared our vision by giv- 
ing us the true perspective and the scale. 

From the standpoint of individuals, even of those few who have 
lost nothing personally, who are alive and safe, who have never 
been near the trenches, never watched an air-raid, or so much as 
seen the inside of a hospital, the War is a monstrous and irrepa- 
rable tragedy. 

But from the epic standpoint, it would not have mattered if all 
the civilians in Great Britain had been starved to death by sub- 
marines, or burned alive in our beds, so long as tlie freedom of 
one country, even a small country like Greece, was secured for- 
ever, let alone the freedom of a great country like Russia — and 
let alone the saving of America's soul. 

For that is what 't comes to. 

Somewhere about the sad middle of the War, an American 



GREAT BRITAIN— SINCLAIR 119 

woman, who is one of the finest of American poets, discussed the 
War with me. She deplored America's attitude in not coming in 
with us. 

I said, politely and arrogantly, "Why should she? It isn't her 
War. She'll do us more good by keeping out of it." 

The poet — who would not have called herself a patriot — an- 
swered, "I am not thinking of your good. I am thinking of the 
good of America's soul." 

Since August 4th, 1914, England has been energetically engaged 
in saving her own soul. Heaven knows we needed salvation! 
But, commendable as our action was and is, the fact remains that 
it was our own soul that we were saving. We thought, and we 
cared, nothing about America's soul. 

In the beginning of the War, when it seemed certain that America 
would not come in, we were glad to think that America's body was 
untouched, that, while all Europe rolled in blood, so vast a terri- 
tory was still at peace, and that the gulf of the Atlantic kept 
American men, American women and children, safe from the hor- 
ror and agony of war. This was a comparatively righteous 
attitude. 

Then we found that it was precisely the Atlantic that gave 
Americans a taste of our agony and our horror. The Atlantic 
was no safe place for the American men and women and children 
who traveled so ingenuously over it. 

And when for a long time we wondered whether America would 
or would not come in, we were still glad; but it was with another 
gladness. We said to ourselves that we did not want America to 
come in. We wanted to win the War without her, even if it took 
us a little longer. For by that time we had begun to look on the 
War as our and our Allies' unique possession. To fight in it was 
a privilege and a glory that we were not inclined to share. 



120 DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY 

"America," we said, "is very much better employed in making 
munitions for us. Let her go on making them. Let her help our 
wounded ; let her feed Belgium for us ; but let her not come in now 
and bag the glory when it is we who have borne the burden and heat 
of the battle." 

And this attitude of ours was not righteous. It was egoistic; it 
was selfish; it was arrogant. We handed over to America the 
material role and hung on tight to the spiritual glory. It was as if 
we had asked ourselves, in our arrogance, whether America was 
able to drink of the cup that we drank of, and to be baptized with 
the baptism of blood which we were baptized withal? 

We had left off thinking even of America's body, and we were 
not thinking at all about her soul. 

Then, only a few months ago, she came in, and we were glad. 
Most of us were glad because we knew that her coming in would 
hasten the coming of peace. But I think that some of us were glad 
because America had saved, before everything, her immortal soul. 

And by our gladness we knew more about ourselves then than we 
had suspected. We know that, under all our arrogance and self- 
ishness, there was a certain soreness caused by America's neu- 
trality. 

We did not care much about Spain's or Scandinavia's or Hol- 
land's neutrality, though the Dutch and Scandanavian navies might 
have helped enormously to tighten the blockade; but we felt 
America's neutrality as a wrong done to our own soul. We were 
vulnerable where her honor was concerned. And this, though 
we knew that she was justified in holding back; for her course was 
not a straight and simple one like ours. No Government on earth 
has any right to throw prudence to the winds, and force war on a 
country that is both divided and unprepared. 

Yet we were vulnerable, as if our own honor were concerned. 



GREAT BRITAIN— SINCLAIR 121 

That is why, however much we honor the men that America 
sends out now, and will yet send out, to fight with us, we honor 
still more her first volunteers who came in of their own accord, who 
threw prudence to every wind that blows, and sent themselves out, 
to fight and to be wounded and to die in the ranks of the Allies. 
It may be that some of them loved France more than England. No 
matter; they had good cause to love her, since France stands for 
Freedom ; and it was Freedom that they fought for, soldiers in the 
greatest War of Independence that has ever been. 

The coming in of America has not placed upon England a 
greater or more sacred obligation than was hers before: — to see to 
it that this War accomplishes the freedom, not only of Belgium 
and Russia and Poland and Serbia and Roumania, but of Ireland 
also, and of Hungary, and, if Germany so wills it, of Germany 
herself. It is inconceivable that we should fail; but, if we did 
fail, we should now have to answer to the soul and conscience of 
America as to our own conscience and our own soul. 




122 DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY 

ELEUTHERIOS VENIZELOS AND THE GREEK SPIRIT 

"TXEUTHERIOS VENIZELOS, the foremost statesman of Greece, 
I i the man to whom in fact she owes that growth in territory and 
influence that has come as a result of the first and second Balkanic 
wars, continues to exert paramount influence in the solution of the 
Eastern question, in spite of the we believe mistaken policy of the 
Triple Entente which permitted King Constantine of Greece for so 
long a time to prevent the direct application of the power of Greece 
to and in the successful termination of the war against Germany. 
Venizelos has never lost faith in the mission of Greece in the 
eastern Mediterranean. He insists that a balance of power in the 
Balkans will prevent an all powerful Bulgaria from selling herself 
and her neighbors to the Pan-German octopus which has stretched 
its tentacles toward Constantinople and on to the Persian Gulf. 

Manfully defending the rights of the Greeks in Macedonia and 
Asia Minor as he for long years supported those of the Greeks in 
Crete, he demands no aggrandizement of territory by right of 
conquest, but only the legitimate control and administration of 
lands that have been for ages inhabited by men of Greek blood, of 
Greek religion, and (until eff'orts were made to enforce other 
speech) of Greek language. He hates as only Greeks can hate, 
oppression of all sorts whether by Turk or Bulgarian or Teuton, 
and desires to see democratic principles finally established the 
world over. Holding this attitude, he could hardly bring himself 
to believe that King Constantine could really be abridging the 
constitutional right of the Greeks to control their own external as 
well as their domestic policy. When fully convinced that this was 
the King's intention, Venezelos cast the die that gave Greek free- 
dom a new birth in Thessaloniki and the Islands. This movement 



GREECE— VENIZELOS • 123 

tardily supported though it was by the Entente, has at last borne 
fruit in a United Greece which will do her share in making the 
East as well as the West safe for Democracy. The people that 
fought so nobly in the revolution of 1821 will know how to give a 
good account of itself under the leadership of a sane, courageous 
and farsighted statesman like Venizelos. 

The passage which I have chosen to translate is from the closing 
words of the speech delivered before the Greek Chamber of Depu- 
ties October 21, 1915. In the first portion of the speech Venizelos 
defends the policy of the participation in the campaign against 
the Dardanelles, which he had in vain advocated, and the support 
of Serbia as against Bulgaria in accordance with the defensive al- 
liance concluded with that country. 

"I must now once more, and for the last time declare to the 
Government which to-day occupies these seats, that it assumes 
the very heaviest of responsibilities before the Nation, in under- 
taking once more to administer the Government of Greece and to 
direct its fortunes in this, the most critical period of its national 
existence, with those antiquated conceptions which, if they had 
prevailed in 1912, would have kept Greece within her old narrowly 
confined borders. These old ideas have been radically condemned 
not only by the will of men, but by the very force of circumstances. 

"It is most natural. Gentlemen, that with those conceptions under 
which that older political world of Greece acted, a political world 
which even to-day by its voting majority controls these seats of 
Government, it is natural, I repeat, that such a Government should 
be unable to adapt itself to the great, the colossal problems which 
have risen since Greece, ceasing to be a small state, and enlarging 
its territories, has taken a position in the Mediterranean which, 
while exceptionally imposing, is at the same time peculiarly sub- 
ject to envy, and is on this account especially dangerous. 



124 DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY 

"How dare you, with those old conceptions assume the responsi- 
bility for the course which you have taken, a course which departs 
widely from the truth, from the traditional policy of that older 
Greek Government, which realized that it is impossible to look for 
any really successful Greek policy which runs counter to the power 
that controls the sea. 

"How is it possible that you can wish to impose on the country 
such conceptions in the face of the repeatedly expressed opinion 
of the representatives of the people, and with the actual results 
of the recent past before you, a past which, with the sincerity that 
distinguishes you, my dear fellow-citizens, you have not hesitated 
to condemn, in order to show clearly that in your heart of hearts 
you would regard us as better off if we were within the old bound- 
aries of 1912! 

"But, sirs, the life of individuals and the life of Nations are gov- 
erned by one and the same law, the law of perpetual struggle. 
This struggle, which is even keener between nations than between 
men, is regulated among men by the internal laws of the country, 
by the penal code, the police and in general the whole organization 
of the state, which, insofar as it is able, defends the weak against 
the strong. Although we have to confess that this organization 
falls far short of perfection, it does at any rate tend gradually 
toward the attainment of its ultimate ideal. But in the struggle of 
nations, where there exists an international law, the pitiful failure 
of which you have come to know, not only in the immediate past, 
but especially during this European war, you must perceive that 
it is impossible for small nations to progress and expand without a 
perpetual struggle. May I carry this argument one step further 
and say that this growth and expansion of Greece is not destined 
to satisfy moral requirements alone or to realize the national and 
patriotic desire to fulfil obligations toward our enslaved brothers, 



GREECE— VENIZELOS 125 

but it is actually a necessary pre-requisite to the continued life of 
the state. 

From certain points of view I might have recognized in accord- 
ance with the conceptions of my worthy fellow-citizen that if it had 
been a matter of continuing to have Turkey as our neighbor in our 
northern frontier, as she formerly was, we could have continued to 
live on for many years, especially if we could have brought our- 
selves to endure from her from time to time without complaint 
certain humiliations and indignities. But now that we have ex- 
panded and become a rival to other Christian powers, against 
whom, in case of defeat in war, we can expect no effective interven- 
tion on the part of other nations, from that moment. Gentlemen, 
the establishment of Greece as a self-sufficing state, able to defend 
itself against its enemies, is for her a question of life and death. 

Unfortunately, after our successful wars, while we were develop- 
ing our new territories and organizing this Greater Greece into a 
model new state, as far as lay within our power, we did not have 
time to secure at once for the people all the advantages and all the 
benefits that should result from extending our frontiers. Our 
unfortunate people up to the present has seen only sacrifices to 
which it has been subjected for the sake of extending the boundaries 
of the state. It has experienced the moral satisfaction of having 
freed its brothers, and the national gratification of belonging to a 
state which is greater than it was before. From the material point 
of view however, from the point of view of economic advantage, 
it has not yet been able to clearly discern what profit it has obtained 
from the enlargement of the state. It is natural then that to-day 
as well, we can only hold before our people the sacrifices that are 
once more required of it. These sacrifices, Gentlemen, according 
to my personal convictions which are as firmly held as — humanly 
speaking — convictions can be, these sacrifices, as I see them, are 



126 DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY 

destined to create a great and powerful Greece, which will bring 
about not an extension of the state by conquest, but a natural return 
to those limits within which Hellenism has been active even from 
prehistoric times. 

"These sacrifices are to create, I insist, a great, a powerful, a 
wealthy Greece, able to develop within its boundaries a live indus- 
trialism competent, from the interests which it would represent, to 
enter into commercial treaties with other states on equal terms, 
and able finally to protect Greek citizens anywhere on earth: for 
the Greek could then proudly say 'I am a Greek,' with the knowl- 
edge that, happen what may, the state is ready and able to protect 
him, no matter where he may be, just as all other great and power- 
ful states do, and that he will not be subjected to prosecution and 
be forced to submit to, the lack of protection as is the Greek subject 
to-day. 

"When you take all these things into account. Gentlemen, you 
will understand why I said a few moments ago, that I and the whole 
liberal party are possessed by a feeling of deepest sadness be- 
cause by your policy, you are leading Greece, involuntarily, to be 
sure, but none the less certainly, to her ruin. You will induce her 
to carry on war perforce, under the most difficult conditions and 
on the most disadvantageous terms. 

"The opportunity to create a great and powerful Greece, such an 
opportunity as comes to a race only once in thousands of years, you 
are thus allowing to be lost forever." 

[Translation, with Notes, by Carroll N. Brown) 




HER ANSWER 

By Charles Dana Gibson 
From the Original Sketch 



ITALY— THAYER 127 

A TRIBUTE TO ITALY 

EVEN now, few Americans understand the great service which 
Italy has done to the Allied Cause. We have expected some 
sensational military achievements, being ourselves unable to 
realize the immense difficulty of the military task which confronted 
the Italians. The truth is that the Terrain over which they have 
fought is incredibly difficult. By the sly drawing of the frontier 
when in 1866 Austria ceded Venetia to the Italians, every pass, 
every access, from Italy into Austria was left in the hands of the 
Austrians. Some of those passes are so intricate and narrow that 
an Austrian regiment could defend them against an army. And 
yet, in two years' fighting the Italians have advanced and have 
astonished the world by their exploits in campaigning above the 
line of perpetual snow and among crags as unpromising as church 
steeples. 

On lower levels they have captured Gorizia, a feat unparalleled 
by any thus far accomplished by the English and French on the 
West. The defense of Verdun remains, of course, the supreme and 
sublime achievement of defensive action, but the taking of Gorizia 
is thus far the most splendid work of the Allied offensive. 

I do not propose, however, to speak in detail of the Italians' mili- 
tary service. Suffice it to say that they have proved themselves 
excellent fighters who combine the rare qualities of dash and endur- 
ance. I wish to speak of the vital contribution Italy has made 
from the beginning of the War to the Great Cause — the cause of 
Democracy and of Civilization. 

When Italy at the end of July, 1914, refused to join Austria 
and Germany she announced to the world that the war which the 
Teutons planned was an aggressive war, and by this announcement 



128 DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY 

she stamped on the Pan-German crimes that verdict which every 
day since has confirmed and which will be indelibly written on the 
pages of history. 

For Italy was a partner of Germany and Austria in the Triple 
Alliance and she knew from inside evidence that the Teutonic 
Powers were not acting on the defensive. Accordingly, her de- 
cision had the greatest significance, and when before the actual 
outbreak of the war she privately informed France that she had no 
intention of attacking that country she relieved the French of 
great suspense. If Italy had joined the Teutons the French would 
have been required to guard their southeastern frontier by a large 
force, perhaps not less than a million men, which were now set 
free to oppose the German attack in the north. 

The world did not understand why Italy waited until May, 1915, 
before declaring war on Austria, but the reason was plain. Ex- 
hausted by their war in Tripoli the Italians had neither munition 
nor food and their soldiers even lacked uniforms. It took nine 
months, therefore, to prepare for war. Another year passed be- 
fore Italy could undertake to face Germany; for the Germans had 
so thoroughly honeycombed Italy's commerce, industry and finances 
that it took two years for the Italians to oust the Germans and to 
train men to replace them. 

By these delays, which seemed to the outside world suspicious, 
Italy did another service. If she had plunged in prematurely as 
the Allies and her friends besought her to do she would have been 
speedily overwhelmed. Imagine what a blow that would have 
been to the Allied Cause, especially coming so early in the War. 
Her prudence saved Europe this disaster. Had Northern Italy 
become enslaved the Teutonic forces could have threatened France 
on the southeast, and with Genoa as a port they could have made 
the Mediterranean much more perilous for the Allied ships and 



ITALY— THAYER 129 

transportation. It is not for the United States, a country of over 
one hundred million population, and yet checked if not intimidated 
by a small body of German plotters and their accomplices, to look 
scornfully on Italy's long deferred entrance into the War. The 
Pro-German element in Italy was relatively stronger than here and 
the elements which composed it — the Blacks, the Germanized finan- 
ciers and business men, many nobles and the Vatican — openly 
opposed making war on the Kaiser. In spite of all these difficul- 
ties, in spite of the very great danger she ran, because if the 
Germans win they threaten to restore the Papal temporal power, 
and the Austrians, Italy stood by the Allies. 

For her to be untrue to the cause of Democracy would be almost 
unthinkable; the great men who made her a united nation were 
all in different ways apostles of Democracy. Mazzini was its 
preacher; Garibaldi fought for it on many fields, in South America, 
in Italy and in France; Victor Emmanuel was the first democratic 
sovereign in Europe in the nineteenth century; Cavour, beyond all 
other statesmen of his age, believed in Liberty, religious, social, 
and political and applied it to his vast work of transforming thirty 
million Italians out of Feudalism, and the stunting effects of 
autocracy into a nation of democrats. 

It was impossible also for Italy, the ancient home of Civilization, 
the mother of arts and refinement, to accept the standard of the 
Huns which the Germans embraced and imposed upon their allies. 
The conflict between the Germans and the Italians was instinctive, 
temperamental. For a thousand years it took the form of a struggle 
between the German Emperors and the Italian Popes for mastery. 
The Germans strove for political domination, for temporal power; 
the Italians strove, at least in ideal, in order that the spiritual 
should not be the vassal of the physical. It was soul force against 
brute force. Looking at it as deeply as possible we see that the 



130 DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY 

Italians, a race sprung out of ancient culture, mightily affected but 
not denatured by Christianity, repudiated the Barbarian ideals of 
Teutonism. Men whose ancestors had worshiped Jupiter and 
Apollo, and who were themselves worshiping the Christian God, 
Madonna and the great saints, had no spiritual affinity with men 
whose ancestors could conceive of no Deities higher than Thor, 
Odin and the other rough, crude, and unmannered denizens of the 
Northern Walhalla. So Italy stood by Civilization. Her risk 
was great, but great shall be her guerdon in the approval of her own 
conscience and the gratitude of posterity. 




Sept. 1, 1917. 



Q 



ITALY— D'ANNUNZIO 131 

AL GENERALE CADORNA 

"lo ho quel che ho donato." 

UESTO che in Te si compie anno di sorte, 

ritalia I'alza in cima della spada 

mirando al segno; e la sua rossa strada 

ne brilla insino alle sue alpine porte. 
Tu tendi la potenza della morte 

come un arco tra il Vodice e I'Hermada; 

varchi I'lsonzo indomito ove guada 

la tua Vittoria col tuo pugno forte. 
Giovine sei, rinato dalla terra 

sitibonda, balzato su dal duro 

Carso col fiore dei tuoi fanti imberbi. 
Questo, che in te si compie, anno di guerra 

splenda da te, avido del futuro, 

e al domani terribile ti serbi. 

Gabriele D'Annunzio 



132 DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY 

TO GENERAL CADORNA 

ON HIS 69TH BIRTHDAY, SEPTEMBER 11, 1917 



T 



"What 1 have given, that have I" 

HIS fateful year which thou fulfillest so. 
Our Italy, her cherisht goal in sight. 
Exalts upon her sword ; and gleameth bright 
Her ruddy pathway to the gates of snow. 

The power of death thou bendest like a bow 
'Twixt Vodice and bleak Hermada's height; 
And Victory, guided by thy hand of might. 
Thro' wild Isonzo forth doth fording go. 

Reborn from lands of drought, a youth art thou, 
Upheaved by rugged Carso suddenly 
With all the lads of thine advancing throng. 

This bloody year which thou fulfillest now, 
may it, onward pressing, shine with thee 
And keep thee for the fearful morrow strong ! 

Poetical Version by 



Qj^l^^-^ 



ITALY— BERN ARDY 133 

THE VOICE OF ITALY 

IN THE great turmoil of nations it rings with a tone peculiarly 
true: for Italy is the country that found herself confronted, at 
the outbreak of the great war, by perhaps the most perplexing 
situation of any of the present allies. If she had chosen to follow 
the way which lay open and easy before her, the war would have 
long since been decided in favor of the Central Powers. Italy had 
entered the Triple Alliance as a clean contract, for an honest de- 
fensive purpose. It was never intended for a weapon of aggres- 
sion. When Austria and Germany decided upon the outrage to 
Serbia that was the cause of the conflagration, they did not consult 
Italy about it, knowing well that Italy would not have consented ; in 
fact, would have denounced it to the world. But they hoped that 
by surprising her with the fait accompli, she would have to yield 
and follow. Italy chose the long hard trail instead, incredibly 
long, inconceivably hard, but morally right, and it has been made 
clear once more in the history of humanity, that "Latin" and "bar- 
baric" are two incompatible terms. 

True enough, Italy felt in her own heart the cry of her long- 
oppressed children from Istria, the Trentino and Dalmatia ring- 
ing just as loud as that of the children of Belgium and the women 
of Serbia; but who can blame her if history had it so, that the 
sudden outrage on other nations was but the counterpart of the 
long-continued provocation to the Italian nationality, when in the 
Italian provinces subject to Austrian rule, the mere singing of a 
song in the mother-language brought women to jail and children 
to fustigation; and a bunch of white, red and green flowers might 
cause an indictment of high treason? National aspirations and 
international honor equally called forth to Italy, and Italy leaped 



134 DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY 

forth in answer as soon as she could make her way clear to the 
fight. She took it up where the political pressure brought to bear 
upon her in the name of European peace in 1866 had compelled 
the fathers of the present leaders to retire from combat. 

General Luigi Cadorna leads the offensive of 1917 where his 
father Count Raffaele Cadorna found it stopped by diplomatic 
arrangements in 1866; Garibaldi's nephew avenges on the Col di 
Lana his obbedisco from the Trentino; Francesco Pecori-Giraldi's 
son repels from Asiago the sons of those Austrians who wounded 
him at Montanara and imprisoned him at Mantova. Gabriele 
d'Annunzio, mature in years and wonderfully youthful in spirit, 
takes up the national ideals of the great master Giosue Carducci 
(who died before he could see the dream of his life realized with 
the reunion of Trento and Trieste, Istria and the Italian cities of 
Dalmatia, to the Motherland) ; and becomes the speaker of the 
nation expectant in Genoa and assembled in Rome to decree the end 
of the strain of Italian neutrality which has to its credit the magnifi- 
cent rebellion to the unscrupulous intrigues of Prince von Biilow, 
and the releasing of five hundred thousand French soldiers from 
the frontier of Savoy to help in the battle of the Marne. 

In D'Annunzio's "Virgins of the Rocks" the protagonist ex- 
presses his belief that oratory is a weapon of war, and that it should 
be unsheathed, so to speak, in all its brilliancy only with the definite 
view of rousing people to action. Surely no man ever had a 
better chance of wielding the brilliant weapon than D'Annunzio, 
in his triumphal progress through Italy during that fateful month 
of May, 1915, when he uttered against neutralism and pacifism, 
germanophilism and petty parliamentarism, the "quo usque tan- 
dem" of the newest Italy. 

Nor can we forget how Premier Antonio Salandra in his mem- 
orable speech from the Capitol, expressed the living and the 



ITALY— BERN ARDY 135 

fighting spirit of Italy, a spirit of strength and humanity, when he 
said: "I cannot answer in kind the insult that the German 
chancellor heaps upon us: the return to the primordial barbaric 
stage is so much harder for us, who are twenty centuries ahead of 
them in the history of civilization." To support his, came the 
quiet utterances of Sonnino (whose every word is a statement of 
Italian right and a crushing indictment of Austro-German felony) 
"proclaiming still once the firm resolution of Italy, to continue to 
fight courageously with all her might, and at any sacrifice, until 
her most sacred national aspirations are fulfilled alongside with 
such general conditions of independence, safety and mutual respect 
between nations as can alone form the basis of a durable peace, 
and represent the very raison d'etre of the contract that binds us 
with our Allies." 

This is the voice of right: the voice of victory which upholds it is 
registered frequently in the admirable war-bulletins of General 
Cadorna, than which nothing more Caesarian has been written in 
the Latin world since the days of Caesar. The simple words follow 
with which the taking of Gorizia was annoanced to the nation. 

'^'August ninth. 
. . . "Trenches and dugouts have been found, full of enemy 
corpses: everywhere arms and ammunition and material of all 
kinds were abandoned by the routed opponent. Toward dusk, 
sections of the brigades Casale and Pavia, waded through the 
Isonzo, bridges having been destroyed by the enemy, and settled 
strongly on the left bank. A column of cavalry and 'bersaglieri 
ciclisti' was forthwith started in pursuit beyond the river." 

Now, the voice of Italy is thundering down from the Stelvio to 
the sea, echoed by forty thousand shells a day on the contested 
San Gabriele: a mighty thing indeed, the voice of Italy at war; a 



136 DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY 

thing of which all Italians may well feel proud. And yet, there is 
another thing of which they are perhaps even prouder in the 
depths of the national heart: the voice of the children of Italy 
"redeemed." All along the re-claimed land, from Ala to Grado 
and from Darzo to Gorizia, sixteen thousand children of Italian 
speech and of Italian blood, for whom Italian schools and Italian 
teachers have been provided even under the increasing menace of 
the Austrian aircraft or gunfire, join daily and enthusiastically in 
the refrain which the soldiers of Italy are enforcing, but a few 
miles ahead : 

*'Va fuora d' Italia, va fuora die Vora, 
va fuora d' Italia, va fuora, stranier!" ^ 

^ From the Inno di Garibaldi: "Get out of Italy, it's high time; get out of Italy, 
stranger, get out!" 



JAPAN— ISHII 137 

JAPAN'S IDEALS AND HER PART IN THE 
STRUGGLE 

THE PEOPLE of the world, whether engaged in open resistance 
to German rapacity, or as onlookers, do well to see, as indeed 
they have seen since its beginning, that modem civilization is at 
stake. On every continent, Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia, and 
both the Americas, recognition of this great fact was instinctive. It 
was obvious everywhere that, if Germany with its sinister aims, 
shamelessly avowed, and its terrible methods, relentlessly carried 
out, was to prevail, all the progress that had been made out of her 
barbarism and savagery would not only be imperiled but lost. 

It was clear that humanity would have to begin anew its weary 
struggle out of the difficulties it had slowly overcome. Every- 
thing of a high order that had been done from the beginning, under 
great, devoted, far-seeing religious leaders, and by unknown mil- 
lions who had fought for liberty, would have to be given up. Rec- 
ognition of the potency of peaceful methods in government and 
industry; the contribution of the individual to his own progress and 
that of mankind ; the gradual triumph of an ordered freedom over 
tyranny and anarchy; all the achievements, that have gradually 
made the world over, would have had to be undertaken again, and 
that, too, without the free contribution from every quarter, which, 
in the varied history of men, had assured the one great triumph 
which is civilization. The dream of individual and national 
conquest — the cause of so much suffering and bloodshed — was 
again to be repeated. This attack has demanded thus far, as it 
will demand until the end, the united efforts of practically all the 
people of the earth in order to defeat this the most desperate at- 
tempt at conquest, undertaken under the most favorable conditions, 



138 DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY 

and after the most perfect preparation known to history. If hesita- 
tion or treachery had arisen at any important point the well-laid 
plot would have succeeded. 

Nothing in the history of Europe, or of all the peoples that 
sprang from it in other parts of the world, is more creditable to 
humanity than the united resistance which this attempt aroused. 
All that it meant wsfs attacked without mercy or shame. Its relig- 
ious teachings and practises, the result of many centuries of growth 
and experience were defied by one of the nations professing the 
same creed. Its political development, the result of struggle under 
which industry, family, and social growth had proceeded in regu- 
lar order was defied. Its humane policies were to be replaced by 
the dictates of might — mercilessly executed. Its small peoples 
were to be crushed, and its greater ones reduced to the status of 
vassals. In a word, all its civilization was to be thrown away. 

But, at the first cry of alarm every threatened people rose as if 
by magic. No surprise was eff^ective, no lack of preparation de- 
terred, no peril brought hesitation. One by one, all jealousies 
were dissipated, all past differences were forgotten, the common 
danger was recognized, and they united, as humanity had never 
done before, in that resistance to German ambitions which the 
world now sees as its one great event, past or present. 

If this threat to civilization was thus met by Europe how much 
more serious was the aspect which it presented to us in Japan! We 
were more than mere participators in this civilization. We had 
grafted upon our own life, old, balanced, remote, isolated, the 
creator of great traditions, the newer and different ideas of Europe, 
assimilating the best of them without losing these that were strong 
and potent among our own. They had been fused into our life 
and, in the process, had enabled us to make an enlarged contribu- 
tion to human progress. We had become so much a part of the 



JAPAN— ISHII 139 

world that nothing in it was alien to us. We had always known, 
even from the earliest times, what our people were, what they meant 
and what they could do. We were in no wise ignorant of our own 
powers and achievements but this new knowledge was akin to the 
addition of a new sense. 

When this threat against mankind came we also saw instinctively 
that it was even more of a peril to us than to Europe. We saw 
that civilization was not a thing of continents, or nations, or races, 
but of mankind, that in the evolution of human forces, men were 
one in purpose and need. If Europe was to be crushed, it was only 
a question of time until all that Europe had done for the world in 
America, or the Antipodes, or in the islands of the sea, would 
follow it. Then would come our turn, then all Asia would be 
thrown into tyranny's crucible, and the world must begin anew. It 
was not a mere diplomatic alliance that drew us into the contest. 
Our own struggles had not been those of aggression; but it was easy 
to see what ruthless conquest meant even if it seemed to be far 
away. Therefore, we acted promptly and we hope with efficiency 
and have since carried on the work in the sphere allotted to us 
by nature with a devotion that has never flagged. It has been our 
duty not to reason why, but to help in saving the world without 
bargains, or dickerings, or suggestions, thus bearing our part in the 
rescue of civilization from its perils. 

As we see our duty, and the duty of the world, only one thing is 
left to do. It is to fight out this war which neither we nor any other 
people or nation, other than the aggressors, have sought. It must 
be fought to the end without wavering, without thought of national 
or individual advantages. The victors are to be victors for civili- 
zation and the world, not for themselves. The contest upon which 
we are unitedly engaged will not only end this war; upon its result 
will depend the extinction of all wars of aggression. No oppor- 



140 DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY 

tunity must ever come again for any nation or people, or any 
combination of nations or peoples, however strong or numerous, 
to seek that universal domination shown by experience to be impos- 
sible, which, if it were possible, would mean the destruction of 
human progress. 

We are proud to be associated with America as Allies in so great 
a cause. Our duty thus keeps pace with our obligation and both 
are guided by our highest desires. We, like you, have enlisted 
until the war is settled and settled right; you, like ourselves, have 
no favors to ask, both merely ask that they may live their own lives, 
settle their own problems, smooth out tneir common differences or 
difficulties, and do their best, along with all other peoples, to make 
the world a better, not a worse, place to live in. 




Q 






tunity : ny nation 

cor ies, however strong or numerous, 

to fc< ! shown by experience to be impos- 

: ' ^ju-e, would mean the destruction of 



^ v'^th America as, Allies in so great 

a c. with our obligation and both 

ar*. We, like you, have enlisted 

unt. ' ke ourselves, have 

■ own lives, 

. ... 3rences or 

OS, and q -, to make 

the world a E o 



o 

Ph Oh O 



-5? ^ 






a 



LATIN AMERICA— DE LA SELVA 141 

TROPICAL INTERLUDE 

I TROPICAL MORNING 

IN the mornings — Oh, the tropical mornings 
When the bells are all so dizzily calling one to prayer! — 
All my thought was to watch from a nook in my window 
Indian girls from the river with flowers in their hair. 

Some bore 

Fresh eggs in wicker boxes 

For the grocery store ; 

Others, baskets of fruit; and some, 

The skins of mountain cats and foxes 

Caught in traps at home. 

They all passed so stately by, they all walked so gracefully, 
Balancing their bodies on lithe unstable hips, 
As if a music moved them that swelled in their bosoms 
And was pizzicatti at their finger-tips. 

II TROPICAL RAIN 

1 HE rain, in Nicaragua, it is a witch they say; 

She puts the world into her bag and blows the skies away; 

And so, in every home, the little children gather. 

Run up like little animals and kneel beside the Mother, 

So frightened by the thunder that they can hardly pray. 

"Sweet Jesu, you that stilled the storm in Galilee, 
Pity the homeless now, and the travelers by sea; 
Pity the little birds that have no nest, that are forlorn; 



142 DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY 

Pity the butterfly, pity the honey bee ; 

Pity the roses that are so helpless, and the unsheltered com. 

And pity me. . . ." 

Then, when the rain is over and the children's prayer is said, 
Oh, joy of swaying palm-trees with the rainbows overhead. 
And the streets swollen like rivers, and the wet earth's smell, 
And all the ants with sudden wings filling the heart with wonder. 
And, afar, the tempest vanishing with a stifled thunder 
In a glare of lurid radiance from the gaping mouth of hell! 



Ill TROPICAL PARK 



T 



HE park in Leon is but a garden 
Where grass and roses grow together; 
It has no ordinance, it has no warden 
Except the weather. 

The paths are made of sand so fine 
That they are always smooth and neat ; 
Sunlight and moonlight make them shine. 
And so one's feet 

Seem always to tread on magic ground 
That gleams, and that whispers curiously, 
For sand, when you tread it, has the sound 
Of the sea. 

Sometimes the band, of a warm night. 
Makes music in that little park, 
And lovers haunt, beyond the bright 
Foot-paths, the dark. 



LATIN AMERICA— DE LA SELVA 143 

You can almost tell what they do and say 
Listening to the sound of the sand, — 
How warm lips whisper, and glances play. 
And hand seeks hand. 

IV TROPICAL TOWN 

DLUE, pink and yellow houses, and, afar, 
The cemetery, where the green trees are. 

Sometimes you see a hungry dog pass by. 
And there are always buzzards in the sky. 
Sometimes you hear the big cathedral bell, 
A blindman rings it; and sometimes you hear 
A rumbling ox-cart that brings wood to sell. 
Else nothing ever breaks the ancient spell 
That holds the town asleep, save, once a year. 
The Easter festival. . . . 

I come from there. 
And when I tire of hoping, and despair 
Is heavy over me, my thoughts go far. 
Beyond that length of lazy street, to where 
The lonely green trees and the white graves are. 



V TROPICAL HOUSE 



Wi 



HEN the winter comes, I will take you to Nicaragua — 
You will love it there! 

You will love my home, my house in Nicaragua, 
So large and queenly looking, with a haughty air 
That seems to tell the mountains, the mountains of Nicaragua, 
"You may roar and you may tremble for all I care!" 



144 DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY 

It is shadowy and cool, 

Has a garden in the middle where fruit trees grow, 

And poppies, like a little army, row on row, 

And jasmine bushes that will make you think of snow 

They are so white and light, so perfect and so frail, 

And when the wind is blowing they fly and flutter so. 

The bath is in the garden, like a sort of pool, 

With walls of honeysuckle and orchids all around; 

The humming birds are always making a sleepy sound ; 

In the night there's the Aztec nightingale ; 

But when the moon is up, in Nicaragua, 

The moon of Nicaragua and the million stars. 

It's the human heart that sings, and the heart of Nicaragua, 

To the pleading, plaintive music of guitars! 



>/v^*^»**^-»-» g/ff'Ja'^/'^'^X^u^. 



LATIN AMERICA— ELLIOTT 145 

LATIN AMERICA AND THE WAR 

IN COMMON with many other parts of the world, even some of 
those immediately involved, Latin America received the out- 
break of the European War with dismayed astonishment, with a 
feeling that it could not be true, with mental confusion as to the 
real causes and objects of the conflict. A survey of newspapers 
from Mexico to Cape Horn during August, 1914, to the end of that 
year shows plainly that for several months public opinion had not 
cleared up, that the conflict seemed to be a frightful blunder, a 
terrific misunderstanding, that might have been avoided, and for 
which no one nation in particular was to blame. 

The deep love of Latin America for Latin Europe undoubtedly 
meant great sympathy for France ; England, too, the great investor 
in and developer of South America, was watched with good feel- 
ing; but Germany too has done much for Latin American com- 
merce and shipping facilities, a work performed with skilfully 
regulated tact, and very many sections of the southern republics 
were loth to believe that a nation so friendly and so industriously 
commercial had deliberately planned the war. 

But as time went on evidence accumulated; the martyrdom of 
Belgium and North France, the use of poisonous gas, the instiga- 
tion of revolts in the colonies of the Entente Allies, the sinking of 
the Lusitania, the shooting of Nurse Cavell, and above all the 
proofs of the enormous military preparations of Germany, slowly 
convinced Latin America that a great scheme had long been per- 
fected; the book of Tannenburg which showed huge tracts of 
South America as part of the future world dominion of Germany 
was seen to be no crazy dream of an individual but the revelation 
of a widely held Teutonic ideal. Many incidents occurring in the 



146 DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY 

United States and Canada, such as explosions and fires in factories 
of war materials, exposure of spies and diplomatic intrigue, dem- 
onstrated a callous abuse of American hospitality which the more 
southerly lands took to heart as lessons; their dawning perception 
of the network of German effort was further clarified by the floods 
of Teutonic propaganda which covered every Latin American Re- 
public and which was in many instances speedily ridiculed by the 
keen-witted native press. 

Frank in their expression of opinion, no sooner had Latin 
Americans resolved in their own minds the question of responsi- 
bility for the war than they gave utterance to their opinions; jour- 
nals avowed themselves pro-Ally, large subscriptions were raised 
in many sections for the relief of the European sufferers, particu- 
larly Belgium, and a number of young men joined the Entente 
armies. In Brazil, which was always supposed to have a German 
bias on account of her large German colonies, some of the foremost 
publicists and writers voluntarily formed the Liga pelos Alliados 
(League in favor of the Allies) with the famous orator, Ruy Bar- 
bosa, at its head, and the prince of Brazilian poets, Olavo Bilac, as 
one of its most active members; the League was organized early 
in 1915 and its meetings were characterized by the warmest pro- 
Ally utterances; many members of the Brazilian Congress joined 
it, and I never heard any Administrative protest on the score of 
neutrality. 

Later in the same year Bilac, who is the object of fervent admi- 
ration, for Latin America often pays more attention to her poets than 
to her politicians, showed that he foresaw the entry of his country 
into the conflict by a passionate appeal to the youth of Brazil to 
fortify themselves by military discipline, in 1916 repeating his 
"call to arms" in a tour throughout that great country. By this 
time the whole of Latin America was lined up, the overwhelming 



LATIN AMERICA— ELLIOTT 147 

mass of press and people declaring pro- Ally, and especially pro- 
French, sympathies, while the few ranged in the opposite camp 
generally had special reasons for their choice, consisting of some 
individual Germanic link. The fact of the prevalence of pro-Ally 
feeling, long before any of the American countries became politi- 
cally aligned is, I think, a remarkable tribute to the response of 
Latin America to the weight of genuine evidence; no propaganda 
was made by any one of the Allied governments, and the solidifi- 
cation of public opinion was due to Latin American feeling and 
not to outside pressure. 

When, in April of this year, the United States was driven to a 
breach with Germany on account of the torpedoing of her ships 
and loss of her citizens' lives, she was the greatest material sufferer 
from German submarine aggression; if Latin America in general 
maintained at that date, and still in some sections maintains, diplo- 
matic relations with the Central Powers, it is largely because they 
have endured no specific injury at German hands. Few Latin 
American States possess a merchant marine traversing the sea 
danger zones. But the entry of the United States was regarded 
with warm approval; her cause was acknowledged to be just and the 
Latin American press reflects nothing but admiration for her step. 
The Republics of Cuba, Panama, Guatemala, Honduras, and in an 
informal manner, Costa Rica, as well as the more or less American- 
controlled Nicaragua, Haiti and Santo Domingo, quickly aligned 
themselves with the United States, with whose fortunes their own 
are closely connected. 

Brazil, revoking her decree of neutrality in June, 1917, was 
perhaps influenced to some degree by the action of the United 
States, but she had her own specific reason in the sinking of three 
of her merchant vessels by German submarines; Brazil possesses 
an enterprising and good mercantile marine, has been carrying 



148 DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY 

coffee and frozen meat to Europe during the war and her ships have 
thus been constantly exposed to risk. The sinking of her vessels 
raised a storm of anger, the popular voice warmly supporting the 
acts of the government. Nor is the alignment of Brazil a mere 
declaration; she has taken over the forty-six German and Aus- 
trian ships lying in her ports, and much of this tonnage, totalling 
300,000 tons, is already in carrying service after three years' 
idleness, two of the vessels having been handed over to the use of 
the Allies. Brazil is also taking over the patrol of a big strip of 
the south-western Atlantic with fifteen units of her excellent navy. 

Bolivia was another South American country which quickly fol- 
lowed the United States in breaking relations with Germany, and 
this was done not because Bolivia had suffered at the hands of the 
Teutonic powers but because she "wishes to show her sympathy 
with the United States and felt it the duty of every democracy to 
ally itself with the cause of justice." With no coast and there- 
fore no mercantile marine, Bolivia is however greatly interested 
in the shipments of rubber and minerals which she sends abroad 
and some of which have been sent to the bottom of the sea by 
torpedoes; her sympathies with the Entente Allies are undoubted. 

On October 6 relations with Germany were broken by Peru, 
the determining factor being the torpedoing of the Peruvian vessel 
Lorton; on October 7 the National Assembly of Uruguay voted 
for a breach with Germany, thus completing the attitude which she 
had frankly declared many months previously, when she protested 
against Germany's methods in submarine warfare. Paraguay, 
although still formally neutral, has expressed her sympathy with 
the United States. 

Before I pass to a few quotations from Latin American sources 
on the subject of their spirit, it is well to look across the seas to the 



LATIN AMERICA— ELLIOTT 149 

Mother Countries, whose sentiments and actions have more effect 
upon Latin America than is always remembered. There is, for 
instance, no doubt that the entry of Portugal into the war on the 
side of her ancient ally, England, profoundly affected the Brazilian 
mind; the friendship between England and Portugal dates from 
1147, and an unbroken political treaty has lasted since 1386 — the 
longest in history; ^ Brazil as the child of Portugal inherited the 
English good feeling, her independence from the Mother Country 
was effected without any prolonged bitterness, and with the actual 
assistance of England. When, then, Brazil saw the people sprung 
from the cradle of her race fighting side by side with the ancient 
friend of both she was deeply stirred. Portuguese merchants 
prosper in large numbers in Brazil, Portuguese news daily fills 
space in the Brazilian newspapers ; the cry of that great Portuguese, 
Theophilo Braga, found echoes in many a gallant Brazilian heart: 

''And with what arms shall Portugal engage, 
So little as she is, in such great feats? 
They call on her to play a leading part 
Who know that in the Lusitanian heart 
Love beats!" 

In a corresponding degree there seems to be little doubt that the 
neutral attitude which Spain has maintained is partly responsible 
for the neutrality of several South American countries; they do 
not forget the bloody years of struggle before they attained inde- 
pendence from Spain, but they are wise enough to differentiate 
between the policy of Ferdinand VII and the heart of Spain. Dr. 

^An English poet wrote in the Fourteenth Century: 

"Portingallers with us have troth in hand 
Whose marchandise cometh much into England. 
They are our friends with their commodities 
And we English passen into their countries." 



150 DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY 

Belisario Porras, the ex-President of Panama, and a distinguished 
scholar and writer said in May, 1917: 

"For us of Central and South America, Iberianism is a matter 
of sentiment, affection and veneration, not a matter of politics. 
Spain is our Mother Country, whence we came, where the names 
we bear are also borne, where the memories and ashes of our 
ancestors are guarded, of whose deeds we are proud, whose tongue 
we speak, whose religion we share, whose heroic character and 
customs we admire. . . . Spain is our pole star, the star to which 
we raise our eyes when we are despairing and when we face a sac- 
rifice for God, for a woman, a child, or our country." 

Spain has had, of course, up to the present, no direct national 
injury to resent; she has on the other hand several reasons for 
remaining politically neutral and can at present do so with honor; 
although she is weak and poor, still exhausted by the long conflicts 
of her past, without resources, without any notable strength in 
army or navy, she is serving as an indispensable channel of com- 
munication. She, as well as many South American countries, can 
best aid the world by concentrating upon production; in addition 
to this, she is, in company with Holland, rendering excellent serv- 
ice in feeding unhappy Belgium, replacing American workers. 

Spain is not intellectually neutral or unmindful of the effect of 
her attitude upon Latin America, and this is shown by the number 
of newspapers on the Allies' side, as La Epoca and La Corres- 
pondencia de Espafia. An immediate response was given to the 
pro-Ally utterances of the Conde de Romanones, who said on 
April 17: 

"Spain is the depository of the spiritual patrimony of a great 
race. She has historical aspirations to preside over the moral 
confederation of all the nations of our blood, and this hope will 
be definitely destroyed if, at a moment so decisive for the future 



LATIN AMERICA— ELLIOTT 151 

as this, Spain and her children are shown to be spiritually di- 
vorced." 

If Spain fails in leadership the love of Latin America for France 
will be the more emphasized, is the conclusion one draws from the 
speeches and writings of Ibero-America. The degree to which 
South America feels herself involved in the fate of France is dis- 
played in such dicta as this of Victor Viana, a Brazilian writer: 

"In the great Latin family, France is the educator, the leader, 
the example, the pride. Thus Brazil, in common with all Latin 
countries, seeing in France the reservoir of mental energy, con- 
stantly renewed by her splendid intellectuals, has as much inter- 
est in the victory of French arms as France herself. The over- 
throw of France would have produced a generation of unbelievers 
and skeptics, and we, in another clime and a new country, should 
not have been able to escape this influence, because we share all 
the movements of French thought. The reaction of French energy 
which created the present generation spread throughout Brazil new 
sentiments of patriotism. . . . The entire world, except naturally 
the combatants on the other side, recognize the justice of the cause 
of France, which is the cause of all the other Allies, of Belgium 
which sacrificed herself, of England which pledges her all to save 
the right, of the United States, of the entire Americas." 

While I have been writing these notes the political situation of 
Argentina in regard to the war has suddenly crystallized ; extending 
over several months there has been a series of submarine attacks 
upon vessels of Argentina, indignant protests in each case being 
met by apologies and promises of indemnity on the part of Ger- 
many. There has been much irritation in spite of these promises, 
cumulative irritation, which however might have remained sub- 
merged had it not been for the revelations of the acts of Count 



152 DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY 

Luxburg, which have made the expression "spurlos versenkt" a 
byword. This exhibition of callous plotting against Argentine 
lives immediately resulted in the handing of passports to the Ger- 
man Ambassador to Argentina, and during the third week in Sep- 
tember both houses of Congress voted by large majorities for a 
severance of relations with Germany. That this step was not, at 
the moment, consummated, was due to President Irigoyen's wish 
to accept the satisfaction offered by Germany; but the sentiments 
of Argentina as a whole have been fully demonstrated. 

Their action plainly showed the temper of the Argentine people, 
who have certainly never been unsympathetic to the Entente Allies' 
cause although they have shown some restiveness under rather 
tactless attempts on the part of a section of the United States press 
to tutor them into line. The best thought of Argentina has all 
along been with the Allies and this is exemplified by an article, 
"Neutrality Impossible," widely published and applauded in June 
of this year by the brilliant Argentine writer and poet Leopoldo 
Lugones : 

"Inevitably War knocks at our door. We are compelled to 
make a decision. Either we must respect the integrity of our past 
in the name of the American solidarity which is the law of life and 
honor for all the nations of the continent, revealing at the same time 
intelligence with regard to our own future, or we must submit our- 
selves, grossly cowardly, to the terrorism of despots." 

CUBA 

1 HE United States broke relations with Germany on April 6. 
On April 7 Dr. Jose Manuel Cortina, speaking before the Cuban 
House of Representatives, when the decree of war against Germany 
was passed, said: 



LATHS AMERICA— ELLIOTT 153 

"We have resolved to give our unanimous and definite consent 
to the proposition submitted to the House to declare a state of war 
between the Republic of Cuba and the German Empire, and to 
join, in this great conflagration of the world, our eff^orts to those of 
the United States of North America. We fight in this conflict, 
which will decide the trend of all morality and civilization in the 
universe, united to the great republic which in a day not long dis- 
tant drew her sword and fired her guns over Cuban fields and seas 
in battle for our liberty and sovereignty. We go to fight as 
brothers beside that great people who have been ever the friends 
and protectors of Cuba, who aided us during the darkest days of 
our tragic history, in moments when opposed by enormous strength, 
we had nearly disappeared from the face of the earth, when we 
had no other refuge, no other loyal and magnanimous friend than 
the great North American people." 

HAITI 

OPEECH of the President of Haiti, M. Philippe Sudre Darti- 
guenave, on May 12, previous to Haiti's breach with Germany: 

"What cause could be more holy than that defended at this mo- 
ment, with unanimous and admirable enthusiasm by the people 
of the United States, by Cuba, by a great deal of Latin America, in 
moral cooperation with the Entente Powers! At Savannah, we 
fought with the soldiers of Washington for the independence of 
the country of Franklin, of Lincoln, of John Brown. ... At the 
cry of distress of Bolivar, did we not throw ourselves into the 
South America's struggle for independence? The task before 
us in this supreme moment is worthy, glorious, because it is that of 
international justice, the liberty of nations, of civilization, of all 
Humanity." 



154 DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY 

CENTRAL AMERICA 

l\S WE have seen above, four of the Central American Repub- 
lics have aligned themselves with the United States since her entry 
into the war, Guatemala, Nicaragua and Honduras breaking off 
diplomatic relations with Germany very shortly after the definite 
action of the United States was known, the statement of Don 
Joaquin Mendez representing the prevalent feeling: "The rupture 
has aligned Guatemala ipso facto with those who are the defenders 
of the modern ideas of democracy and freedom." Small in size 
and limited in resources, it is not likely that any active part will be 
taken by Central America in the war; she is removed from the 
most dangerous zones and will not suffer, it is to be hoped, more 
than the inevitable and temporary economic embarrassments due 
to dislocation of the world's industrial systems. But her spirit is 
reflected in such announcements as this notice from the front page 
of a little daily paper published in S. Pedro Sula, Honduras: 

"This periodical is Latin and as such professes its sympathy in 
favor of the Allied nations now struggling so nobly in defense of 
Liberty with, as their aim, the establishment of a lasting peace 
which will render impossible the future development of schemes 
of conquest." 

The position of Costa Rica, informally aligned with the Allies 
and the United States, is peculiar in that she cannot formalize her 
position until her new government has received the recognition of 
these countries. Don Ricardo Fernandez Guardia, the foremost 
writer of Costa Rica, says that "The fact that we have off*ered the 
use of our ports, since April 9, 1917, to the navy of the United 
States, undoubtedly constitutes a breach of neutrality, and in con- 
sequence Costa Rica considers herself as enlisted in the ranks of 
the Allies de facto. There is an overwhelming sentiment of sym- 



LATIN AMERICA— ELLIOTT 155 

pathy with the Allies both on the part of the government and the 
great majority of the people of Costa Rica." 

Panama, immediately following the news of the United States' 
breach with Germany, declared herself "ready to do all within 
her power to protect the Panama Canal" ; Uruguay, although mak- 
ing no breach of relations with the Central Powers, supported 
United States action and denounced submarine warfare as carried 
on by Germany; Paraguay, too, expressed her sympathy with the 
United States which she said "was forced to enter the war to re- 
establish the rights of neutrals." 

Thus the only Latin American nations which have rigidly pre- 
served a neutral attitude are Mexico, whose own internal prob- 
lems form an entirely sufficient reason; Ecuador, Venezuela and 
Colombia. They are still political neutrals, but no one who knows 
the Latin soul can doubt that there is in each of these lands a strong 
feeling of admiration for the vindication of Latin elasticity which 
France and Italy and Portugal have shown, and for the dogged 
might of England whose naval skill has prevented the strangulation 
of the commerce of the world; in this matter all these lands are 
interested, since all are raw-material producers shipping their 
products abroad. This sentiment was concisely expressed by Ruy 
Barbosa, the Brazilian orator, when on August 5 the Liga pelos 
Alliados held a meeting of "homage to England" on the third 
anniversary of her entry into war, and he declared it "an honor 
and pleasure to salute the great English nation to whom we owe 
in this war the liberty of the seas and the annihilation of German 
methods upon the ocean, without which European resistance to the 
German attack and the preservation of the independence of the 
American continent would be impossible." 

Nothing would, I think, be more improper than that any nation 
should be urged to enter the war against her own feelings; but for 



156 DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY 

those who have taken or may yet take that step there is one very 
high consideration which cannot be forgotten — the effect upon the 
national spirit of To-morrow of a gallant and decisive attitude 
Today. Who has more finely expressed this sense of the formation 
of the heritage of ideas than the modem Portuguese poet Quental? 

*Even as the winds the pinewood cones down cast 
Upon the ground and scatter by their blowing 
And one by one, down to the very last, 
The seeds along the mountain ridge are sowing. 
Even so, by winds of time, ideas are strown 
Little by little, though none see them fly — 
And thus in all the fields of life are sown 
The vast plantations of posterity. 



|vt;<,.,..^,<5uJi^^. 



October 20, 1917. 

*Odes Modernas, by Anthero de Quental, translated by George Young. 



LATIN AMERICA— DE LA SELVA 157 

DRILL 

Williams College, April, 1917 

yJNE! two, three, four! 

One! two, three, four! 

One, two! . . . 

It is hard to keep in time 

Marching through 

The rutted slime 

With no drum to play for you. 

One! two, three, four! 

And the shuffle of five hundred feet 

Till the marching line is neat. 

Then the wet New England valley 
With the purple hills around 
Takes us gently, musically, 
With a kindly heart and willing, 
Thrilling, filling with the sound 
Of our drilling. 

Battle fields are far away. 
All the world about me seems 
The fulfilment of my dreams. 
God, how good it is to be 
Young and glad to-day! 

One! two, three, four! 
One, two, three! . . . 



158 DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY, 

Now, as never before, 

From the vastness of the sky, 

Falls on me the sense of war. 

Now, as never before, 

Comes the feeling that to die 

Is no duty vain and sore. 

Something calls and speaks to me: 

Cloud and hill and stream and tree; 

Something calls and speaks to me. 

From the earth, familiarly. 

I will rise and I will go. 

As the rivers flow to sea, 

As the sap mounts up the tree 

That the flowers may blow — 

God, my God, 

All my soul is out of me! 

God, my God, 

Your world is much too beautiful! I feel 

My senses melt and reel. 

And my heart aches as if a sudden steel 

Had pierced me through and through. 

I cannot bear 

This vigorous sweetness in your air; 

The sunlight smites me heavy blow on blow, 

My soul is black and blue 

And blind and dizzy. God, my mortal eyes 

Cannot resist the onslaught of your skies ! 

I am no wind, I cannot rise and go 

Tearing in madness to the woods and sea; 

I am no tree. 



LATIN AMERICA— DE LA SELVA 159 

I cannot push the earth and lift and grow; 
I am no rock 

To stand unmovable against this shock. 
Behold me now, a too desirous thing, 
Passionate lover of your ardent Spring, 
Held in her arms too fast, too fiercely pressed 
Against her thundering breast 
That leaps and crushes me! 

One! two, three, four! 
One! two, three, four! 
One, two, three! , . . 

So it shall be 

In Flanders or in France. After a long 
Winter of heavy burthens and loud war, 
I will forget, as I do now, all things 
Except the perfect beauty of the earth. 
Strangely familiar, I will hear a song, 
As I do now, above the battle roar. 
That will set free my pent imaginings 
And quiet all surprise. 
My body will seem lighter than the air. 
Easier to sway than a green stalk of corn ; 
Heaven shall bend above me in its mirth 
With flutter of blue wings ; 
And singing, singing, as to-day it sings, 
The earth will call to me, will call and rise 
And take me to its bosom there to bear 
My mortal-feeble being to new birth 
Upon a world, this world, like me reborn, 



160 DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY 

Where I shall be 

Alive again and young again and glad and free. 

One! two, three, four! 
One! two, three, four! 
One, two, three! . . . 

All the world about me seems 
The fulfilment of my dreams. 




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PORTUGAL—DE MENDONCA 161 

THE PEOPLE'S STRUGGLE 

"Let no free country be alien to the freedom of another country." 

''"PORTUGAL is going solemnly to affirm on the field of battle 
-L her adhesion to this precept, though uttered by German 
lips. In defense of it, Portuguese will fight side by side with 
Englishmen, as they fought with them at Aljubarrota, side by side 
with Frenchmen, who fought with them at Montes Claros. Were 
it necessary to appeal to a motive less disinterested than the noble 
ideal proclaimed by Schiller, we have this: the payment of an 
ancient debt to which our honor binds us. Let us go forward to 
defend territories of those who defended ours, let us maintain the 
independence of nations who contributed to the salvation of our 
own independence. 

"But the objective is a higher one, I repeat. This has been made 
quite clear within the last few months, through the revolution in 
Russia, the participation of the United States, and the solidarity, 
more or less effective, of all the democracies. It is the people's 
struggle for right, for liberty, for civilization against the dark 
forces of despotism and barbarism. Portugal would betray her 
historic mission were she now to fold her arms, the arms which 
discovered worlds. When the earth was given to man, it was not 
that it should be peopled by slaves. The sails of Portuguese ships 
surrounded the globe like a diadem of stars, not as a collar of 
darkness to strangle it." 

Henrique Lopes De Mendonca 

of the Academy of Science of Lisbon, speaking at Lisbon in May, 1917. 
Translation by L. E. Elliott. 



162 DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY 

PORTUGAL 

Lisbon, 18th August, 1917 

I HAVE received your letter of August 2nd, in which you ask 
me, as representing Portugal, to send a message to the Ameri- 
can people to be printed in the book "Defenders of Democracy," and 
state that a distinguished Portuguese official has been good enough 
to mention my name to you as that of "an authoritative writer on 
Portuguese affairs." 

I am sensible of the honor done me, but not being a citizen of 
Portugal, I dare not presume to speak for that country. 

A foreigner however, with friends in both the camps in which 
Portuguese society is divided, may perhaps be able to state some 
facts unknown to the American public and of interest at the present 
time. 

And first let me remark that the entry of America into the war, 
which is a pledge of victory for the Allies, has been a surprise and 
a relief to the Portuguese, who are by nature pessimists. We 
Anglo-Saxons are considered to be mainly guided in our conduct 
by material considerations — did not Napoleon call the English "a 
nation of shopkeepers"? — and the saying "Time is money" is 
frequently quoted against us; hence hardly any Portuguese imag- 
ined that America would abandon the neutrality which seemed 
commercially profitable, and even after the decision had been 
taken, few thought that the United States were capable of raising a 
large army and of transporting it overseas. 

Now that America and Portugal are fighting side by side, in 
a common cause, it is well that they should understand one another. 
For all their diff^erences of race, religion and language, their ideas 



PORTUGAL— PRESTAGE 163 

are similar. The Portuguese being kindly, easy-going folk, hate 
militarism and the reign of brute force which is identified with 
German "Kultur." As they prize their independence and know 
their weakness, both inclination and necessity lead them to the 
side of the powers who may be supposed to favor the continuance 
of their separate existence and the retention by them of their col- 
onies; as they have a keen sense of justice, and respect their engage- 
ments, they feel and have shown their sympathy with violated and 
outraged Belgium and with the other victims of German aggression. 
Why then, it may be asked, did they not support whole-heartedly 
the Government of the Republic when it determined to take part 
in the war? The answer is simple. 

They felt that their first duty was to protect their colonies, threat- 
ened by the enemy, and that in a war where the combatants are 
counted by millions, the small contingent that Portugal could 
furnish would be of little weight on the battlefields of Europe. 
Unless treaty obligations and considerations of honor forced them 
to be belligerents, they considered that as Portugal was poor and 
had relatively to population almost the heaviest public debt of any 
European Country, they ought to remain neutral — that this view 
was mistaken is daily becoming clearer to them, thanks in part to 
the propaganda of the Catholic paper Ordem and the official Mon- 
archist journal Diario Nacional, which have insisted as strongly 
as the Republican press on the necessity of Portuguese participa- 
tion in the war, in accord with her ancient traditions. He who 
risks nothing, gains nothing. By her present heavy sacrifices for 
a great ideal, Portugal wins a fresh title to universal consideration, 
and by helping to vanquish Germany she defends her oversea 
patrimony, which the Germans proposed to annex. 

I have said that the ideas of the United States and Portugal are 
similar. But the pressing needs of Portugal are a competent ad- 



164 DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY 

ministration, public order and social discipline, which Germany 
possesses to a remarkable degree, and admiration of these has laid 
Portuguese Conservatives open to the charge of being pro-German. 
Many of them judge from experience that the desiderata I refer to 
cannot be secured in a democracy, while a few of them have gone 
so far as to desire a German triumph, because they foolishly 
thought that the Kaiser would restore the monarchy. None of 
them, I think, sympathize with German methods ; but they have suf- 
fered from a century of revolutions, dating from 1820, and attrib- 
ute these disasters to the anti-Christian ideas of the French Revolu- 
tion. In America that great movement had beneficent results, as 
I understand, which only shows that one man's drink is another's 
poison. 

Divergent ideals and other considerations led Portuguese Con- 
servatives to throw their influence into the scale in favor of neu- 
trality, but now that their country is at war, they have accepted 
the fact and can be trusted to do their duty. At the front political 
and other differences are forgotten and the soldiers, whatever their 
creed, are honoring the warlike traditions of their race and remind- 
ing us of the days when Wellington spoke of Portuguese troops as 
the "fighting-cocks" of his army. 

By organizing with great efforts and sending a properly trained 
and equipped expeditionary force to France, the Government of 
the Republic has deserved well of the country and the Allies, and 
I believe that it has unconsciously been the agent of Divine Provi- 
dence. The men, when they return will bring with them a firmer 
religious faith, the foundation of national well-being, and a higher 
standard of conduct than prevails here at present; they may well 
prove the regenerators of a land which all who know it learn to 
love, a land, the past achievements of whose sons in the cause of 
Christianity and civilization are inscribed on the ample page of 



PORTUGAL— PRESTAGE 165 

history. Portugal which produced so many saints and heroes, 
which founded the sea road to India and discovered and colonized 
Brazil, cannot be allowed longer to vegetate, for this in the case 
of a country means to die. 




166 DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY 

ROUMANIA 

AN INTERPRETATION 

A SERBIAN politician, conversing with a traveler from West- 
ern Europe, mentioned the words "a nice national balance" ; 
and when the other, bored to death with the everlasting wrangle 
of the turbulent Balkans, tried to lead the conversation to Shake- 
speare and the Musical Glasses, away from Macedonia and Albania 
and komitadjis and Kotzo-Vlachs, the Serbian remarked with a 
laugh that the nice national balance of which he was speaking was 
not political, but economic and social. 

"You see," he said, "we Serbians are born peasants, bom agri- 
culturists, men of the glebe and the plow. The Roumanian, on the 
other hand, is a born financier. Gold comes to his hand like 
fish to bait. He comes to Serbia to make money — and he makes 
it." 

"But," said the Western European, "isn't that rather hard on the 
Serbian?" 

"No! Not a bit! For it is the young Serbian who marries the 
Roumanian's daughter, and the young Serbian girl who marries 
the Roumanian's son. Thus the Serbian money, earned by the 
Roumanian, is still kept in the country. You know," he added 
musingly, "the Roumanians are a singularly handsome, a singu- 
larly engaging people. I myself married a Roumanian." 

"A rich Roumanian's daughter, I suppose?" 

"Heavens, no! A poor girl." 

And he added with superb lack of logic: 

"Who wouldn't marry a Roumanian — be she rich — or poor!" 

Who wouldn't marry a Roumanian? 



ROUMANIA— ABDULLAH 167 

The secret of the Balkans is contained in that simple rhetoric 
question. 

For, clear away from the days when the Slavs made their first 
appearance in Southern Europe and, crossing the Danube, came to 
settle on the great, green, rolling plain between the river and the 
jagged, frowning Balkan Mountains, then proceeded southwards 
and formed colonies among the Thraco-Illyrians, the Roumanians, 
and the Greeks, to the days of Michael the Brave who drove the 
Turks to the spiked gates of Adrianople and freed half the penin- 
sula for a span of years; from the days when gallant King Mirt- 
sched went down to glorious defeat amongst the Osmanli yataghans 
to the final day when the Russian Slav liberated the Roumanian 
Latin from the Turkish yoke, the Roumanian has held high the 
torch of civilization and culture. 

Latin civilization! 

Latin culture! 

Latin ideals! 

Straight through, he has been the Western leaven in an Eastern 
land. 

Geographically, the Fates were unkind to him. 

For he stood in the path of the most gigantic racial movements of 
the world. His land was the scene of savage racial struggles. 
His rivers ran red with the blood of Hun and Slav, of Greek and 
Albanian, of Osmanli and Seljuk. His fields and pastures became 
the dumping-ground of residual shreds of a dozen and one nations 
surviving from great defeats or Pyrrhic victories and nursing 
irreconcilable mutual racial hatreds. 

But the old Latin spirit proved stronger than Fate, stronger than 
numbers, stronger than brute force. It proved strong enough to 
assimilate the foreign barbarians, instead of becoming assimilated 



168 DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY 

by them. It was strong enough to wipe out every trace of Asian 
and Slavic taint. It was strong enough to keep intact the Latin 
idea against the steely shock of Asian hordes, the immense, crush- 
ing weight of Slav fatalism, the subtleties of Greek influence. 

The Roumanian is a Roman. 

His cultural ideal was, and is, of the West, of Rome, of France 
— and of Himself; and he has kept it inviolate through military and 
political disaster, through slavery itself. 

Roumania has remained a window of Europe looking toward 
Asia as surely and as steadily as Petrograd was a window of Asia 
looking toward Europe. 

The Roumanian is proud of his Latin descent ; and he shows his 
ancestry not only in his literature, his art, and his every day life, 
but also, perhaps chiefly, in his government which is practically a 
safe and sane oligarchy, modeled on that of ancient Florence, and, 
be it said, fully as successful as that of the Florentine Republic. 

Latin, too, is his diplomacy. It is clean — and clever. It is the 
big stick held in a velvet glove. It is supremely able. He seeks 
a great advantage with a modest air, in contrast to the Greek who 
seeks a modest advantage with a grandiloquent air. 

He seeks no reclame, but goes ahead serenely, unfalteringly, 
sure in his knowledge that he is the torch-bearer of ancient Rome 
in the savage Balkans. 




RUSSIA'S STRUGGLE 

By 0. E. Cesare 
From the Original Cartoon 



RUSSIA— NARODNY 169 

THE SOUL OF RUSSIA 

THERE is a strange saying in Russia that no matter what hap- 
pens to a man, good results to him thereby. No matter what 
hair-breadth escapes he has, what calamities he faces, what hard- 
ships he undergoes, he emerges more powerful, more experienced 
from the ordeal. Danger and privation are more beneficial in the 
long run than peace and joy. A nation of some fifty different 
races gradually melting into one, a country covering a territory of 
one-sixth of the surface of the earth and a population of 185,- 
000,000, the Russians have remained to the outside world the 
apaches of Europe, wild tribes of the steppes. In the imagination 
of an average American or Englishman, Russia was something 
Asiatic, something connected with the barbaric East, a country 
beyond the horizon. It was considered as lacking in culture and 
civilization, and as a menace to the West. "Nichevo, sudiba!" — 
(It doesn't matter, everything is fate) replies a Russian, crossing 
himself. The whole psychology of the Slavic race is crystallized 
in these two impressionistic words. 

What John Ruskin said in his famous historic essay applies to 
Russia: "I found that all the great nations learned their truth of 
word and strength of thought in war." Every great Russian re- 
form has taken place suddenly as a consequence of some nation- 
wide calamity. The Tartar invasion united Russia into one pow- 
erful nation; the Crimean War abolished the feudal system; the 
Russo-Turkish War gave the judicial reforms and abolished cap- 
ital punishment; the Russo-Japanese War gave the preliminary 
form of Constitutional government in the Duma; the present war is 
opening the soul of Russia to the world by giving an absolute demo- 
cratic form of government to the united Slavic race. The present 



170 DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY 

war will reveal that Russia the known has been the very opposite 
extreme of Russia the unknown. 

The outside world is wondering how the Russian character will 
fit in with the aspirations of democracy. They cannot reconcile 
the Russia of pogroms and Siberia with the Russia of wonderful 
municipal theaters, great artists, writers, musicians and lovers of 
humanity. The world has known the tyrants like Plehve, Trepoff, 
OrlofF and Stolypin, or others like Rasputin, Protopopoff and for- 
gets that Russia has also produced geniuses like Dostoyewsky, 
Turgenieff, Tchaikowsky, Tolstoy, Moussorgsky, Rimsky-Kor- 
sakoff, Mendeleyeff and Metchnikoff. The world has looked at 
Russia as a land of uncultivated steppes, of frozen ground, hungry 
bears and desperate Cossacks, and forgets that in actuality this is 
the Russia of the past very extreme surface and next to it is a Russia 
of great civilization and the highest art, unknown yet to the West 
generally. 

One of the strangest peculiarities of Russian life is that you will 
find the greatest contrasts everywhere. Here you will see the most 
luxurious castles, cathedrals, convents, villas and estates; there 
you will find the most desolate huts of the moujiks and lonely her- 
mit caves in the wilds of Siberia. Here you will meet the most 
selfish chinovnik, the most fanatic desperado or reckless bureau- 
crat ; there you face the noblest men and women, supermen, physi- 
cally and mentally. You will find that all Russian life is full of 
such mental and physical contrasts. 

This is the dualism that confronts like a sphinx the foreigners. 
In the same way you will find that the Russian homes are full of 
contrasting colors, bright red and yellow, white and blue. The 
Russian music is the most dramatic phentic art ever created; it 
reaches the deepest sorrow and the gayest hilarity and joy. 



RUSSIA— NARODNY 171 

Dreamy, romantic, imaginary, simple, hospitable and childlike as 
an average moujik, is the soul of the people. Nowhere is there 
a hint of those qualities which are thrown up as dark shadows on 
the canvas of his horizon. While with one hand Russia has been 
conquering the world, with the other she has been creating the most 
magnificent masterpieces of humanity. In the same generation she 
produces a Plehve and a Tolstoy, both in a way, true to national 
type. 

In the popular American imagination, which invariably seizes 
upon a single point, three things stand out as representative of 
Russia: the moujiks, the Cossacks and the Siberian penal system. 
The vast unknown spaces between these three have been filled in 
with the dark colors of poverty and oppression, so that a Russian is 
looked upon as an outcast of evolution, an exile of the ages. 

The Russia of the dark powers is past; thus soon will pass the 
Russian chinovnik, the Russian spy and the Russian gloom, who 
have been a shadow of the Slavic race. From now all the world 
will listen to the majestic masterpieces of the Russian composers, 
see the infinite beauty of the Russian life and feel the greatness of 
the Russian soul. Not only has Russia her peculiar racial civili- 
zation, her unique art and literature, and national traditions, but 
she has riches of which the outside world knows little, riches that 
are still buried. The Russian stage, art galleries, archives, monas- 
tery treasuries and romantic traits of life remain still a sealed 
book to the outsiders. Take for instance, Russian music, the 
operas of Rimsky-Korsakoff, the plays of Ostrowsky and the sym- 
phonies of Reinhold Gliere or Spendiarov and you will have 
eloquent chapters of a modem living Bible. No music of another 
country is such a true mirror of a nation's racial character, life, 
passion, blood, struggle, despair and agony, as the Russian. One 



172 DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY 

can almost see in its turbulent-lugubrious or buoyant-hilarious 
chords the rich colors of the Byzantine style, the half Oriental at- 
mosphere that surrounds everything with a romantic halo. 

The fundamental purpose of the pathfinders of Russian art, 
music, literature and poetry was to create beauties that emanated, 
not from a certain class or school, but directly from the soul of the 
people. Their ideal was to create life from life. Though pro- 
found melancholy seems to be the dominant note in Russian music 
and art, yet along with the dramatic gloom go also reckless hilarity 
and boisterous humor, which often whirl one off one's feet. This 
is explained by the fact that the average Russian is extremely emo- 
tional and consequently dramatic in his artistic expressions. Late 
Leo Tolstoy said to me on one occasion: "In our folksong and 
folk art is evidently yearning without end, without hope, also power 
invisible, the fateful stamp of destiny, and the fate in preordina- 
tion, one of the fundamental principles of our race, which explains 
much that in Russian life seems incomprehensible for the for- 
eigners." 

Thus the Russian art and soul in their very foundations are 
already democratic, simple, direct and true to the ethnographic 
traits of the race. In the same way you will find the Russian home 
life, the peasant communities, the zemstvo institutions, offsprings 
of an extremely democratic tendency, perhaps far more than any 
such institutions of the West. Instead of the rich or noblemen ab- 
sorbing the land of the peasants, we find in Russia the peasant 
commune succeeding to the property of the baron. An average 
Russian peasant is by far more democratic and educated, irrespec- 
tive of his illiteracy than an average farmer of the New World. 
He has the culture of the ages in his traditions, religion and 
national folk-arts. Russia has more than a thousand municipal 
theaters, more than a hundred grand operas, more than a hundred 



RUSSIA— NARODNY 173 

colleges and universities or musical conservatories. Russia has 
a well-organized system of cooperative banks and stores and a 
marvelous artelsystem of the working professional classes which 
in its democratic principles surpasses by far the labor union 
systems of the West. Herr von Bruggen, the eminent German 
historian writes of the Russian tendency as follows: "Wherever 
the Russian finds a native population in a low state of civilization, 
he knows how to settle down with it without driving it out or crush- 
ing it; he is hailed by the natives as the bringer of order, as a 
civilizing power." 

I have always preached and continue to do so in the future, 
that Russia and the United States should join hands, know and 
love each other, the sooner the better. Russia needs the active 
spirit, the practical grasp of the things, which the people of the 
United States possess. Nothing will help and inspire an average 
Russian more than the sincere democratic hand of an American. 
A dose of American optimism and active spirit is the best toxin for 
free Russia. On the other hand, the American needs just as much 
Russian emotionalism, aesthetic culture and mystic romanticism, 
as he can give of his racial qualities. 

The old system having gone, Russia is free to open her national, 
spiritual and physical treasuries. For some time to come neither 
Germany nor other European countries, will be able to go to Russia, 
for even if the war does not last long, its havoc will take years to 
repair. Endless readjustments will have to take place in each 
country affected by the war. Russia, being more an agricultural, 
intellectual-aristocratic country, will feel least of all the after 
effects the past horrors, therefore has the greatest potentialities. 
There is not only a great work, adventure and romance that waits 
an American pioneer in Russia, but a great mission which will 
ultimately benefit both nations. It should be understood that the 



174 DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY 

Russian democracy will not be based upon the economic-industrial, 
but aesthetic-intellectual principles of life. It is not the money, 
the financial power that will play the dominant role in free Russia, 
but the ideal, the dramatic, the romantic or mystic tendency. 
Money will never have that meaning in Russia which it has in the 
West. It will be the individual, the emotional, the great symbol 
of the mystic beyond, that will speak from future democratic 
Russia only in a different and more dynamic form, as it has been 
speaking in the past. 

As Lincoln is the living voice of the American people, thus 
Tolstoy is and remains the glorified Russian peasant uttering his 
heart to the world. The voice of this man alone is sufficient to 
tell the outside world that the Russian democracy is a creation not 
of form and economics but of spirit and aesthetics. 



y^ytA-X^^ k/VO^ 



Author of "Echoes of Myself" "The Dance," "The Art of Music" X Volume, etc. 




RUSSIA— NARODNY 175 

THE AMERICAN BRIDE 

PETKA had been for years a village tailor but he had never been 
able to save enough money to open a grocery-store. He hated 
his profession and hated to think that he could never get anything 
higher in the social rank of the place than what he was. While 
the name of a tailor sounded to him so cheap, that of a merchant 
flattered his ambition immensely. But there was no chance to earn 
the five hundred rubles, which, he thought, was necessary to change 
the profession. 

"If I marry a poor peasant girl like Tina or Vera, I'll never 
get anywhere," soliloquized Petka and made plans for his future. 

Petka knew a girl with two hundred ruble-dowry, but she was 
awfully homely and deaf; and he knew a widow with three hundred 
rubles, but she was twenty years older than himself. It was a 
critical situation. 

One day Petka heard that the daughter of an old pedler had a 
dowry of five hundred rubles, exactly the amount he needed. 
After careful planning of the undertaking he hired a horse and 
drove to the lonely cottage of the rag pedler to whom he explained 
as clearly as he could, the purpose of his visit. 

"My Liza ain't at home," the old man replied. "She is in that 
distant country called America. Good Lord, Liza is a lady of 
some distinction. If you should see her on the street you would 
never take her for my daughter. She wears patent-leather shoes, 
kid-gloves, corsets and such finery. Why, I suppose she has a 
proposal for her every finger, if not more. She is some girl, I 
tell you." 

Petka listened with throbbing heart to the thrilling story of the 
old man, scratched his head and said : 



176 DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY 

"I suppose she is employed in some high class establishment or 
something like that?" 

"Of course, she is," grunted the pedler proudly. "She might be 
employed or she might not. She has written to me that she is a 
lady all right." 

"What is her special occupation?" 

"She is employed as the waitress in a lunch-room on the so called 
Second Avenue corner in New York. And her salary reaches 
often thirty dollars a month, which represents a value in our money 
of something over sixty rubles. Now that is not a joke. She has 
all the food and lodging free. Why, it's a real gold-mine." 

"Has she saved already much?" 

"She has five hundred dollars in the savings bank, and she has 
all the hats and shoes, and gloves and such stuff that would make 
our women faint. So you see she is the real thing." 

The happy father pulled the daughter's letter from the bottom of 
his bed and reached it over to the visitor. Petka read and reread 
the letter with breathless curiosity. In the letter which was also a 
small snap-shot picture of the girl. Petka looked at the picture 
and did not know what to say. To judge from her photograph, she 
was a frail spinster, with high cheekbones, a long neck and a nose 
like a frozen potato. But the trimming of her hair, her city hat 
with flowers, and her whole American bearing made her interesting 
enough to the ambitious tailor. For a long time he was gazing at 
the picture and thinking. 

"Do you think that Liza would like to marry a man like me? I 
am a well known tailor. But I have now a chance to become a 
merchant in our village. I need some money to make up the 
diff"erence, and why not try the luck? Liza might be a well known 
waitress in New York, but to be a merchant's wife is a diff'erent 



RUSSIA— NARODNY 177 

thing. Don't you think she might consider my proposal 
seriously?" 

The old pedler puffed at his pipe, walked to the window and 
back as if measuring the matter most seriously. 

"It all depends — you know Liza is a queer girl — it all depends 
how you strike her with a strong letter. You could not go to New 
York and make the proposal personally. It has to be done by 
mail. It all depends how well the letter is written, how everything 
is explained and how the idea of being a merchant's wife strikes her. 
She is a queer girl, like all the American women are." 

"Can your Liza read and write letters?" 

"Of course, she can. Liza is a lady of some standing. She 
can write and read like our priest. She is a highly educated girl." 

"So you think a strong letter will fix her up?" 

"Exactly. And tell her everything you plan to do." 

Petka took Liza's address, drank a glass of vodka to the success 
of the plan and left the old pedler still harping on his daughter. 
All the way home and many days afterwards Petka could think of 
nothing else. It seemed to him the greatest opportunity in the 
world to marry a girl from America. But now and then he got 
skeptical of his ability to get such a prize. However, he decided to 
try. He admitted that the whole success lay in the shaping of a 
strong and convincing letter and sending it to her properly. Petka 
knew how to write letters, but the question was would his style be 
impressive enough to influence a girl in America to come to Russia 
and marry a man whom she had never seen? However, Petka 
knew Platon, the village saloon-keeper, as the most gifted man for 
that purpose. But in a case like this he hated to take anybody 
into his confidence. 

After arriving home Petka began to practise, writing a love- 



178 DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY 

letter every day. But nothing came of it. One letter was too mild, 
the other too extravagant. Finally he gave it up, and whispered 
his secret to the inn-keeper, saying : 

"Now, old man, do me the great favor and I'll fix you up when 
I get her dowry. I want the letter to be strong and tender at the 
same time." 

The inn-keeper consented. But Petka had to tell all the details 
and specifications. Even Platon admitted that it required some 
skill to write the letter. When he had thought the matter over 
carefully, made some notes and discussed the subject with Petka 
from every angle, he took a long sheet of paper, glued a rose in the 
corner and wrote as follows: 

"Highly respected Mademoiselle Liza: — You have never been 
in our village, but it is a peach. I am the cream of the place. I 
have here all the girls I need. I have a house and my business. 
But the point is I want to open a store and need a wife with ex- 
perience. We have all the money. But I need some capital to 
begin. As you have all that and besides, I have fallen in love 
with you, I lay the off"er before your tender feet. Your beautiful 
image has haunted me day and night, and your wonderful eyes 
follow me in my dreams, oh, you lovely rose! If you are ready 
to marry a merchant like myself, do not waste any time, but come 
over and let's have a marriage ceremony as the world has never 
seen here. However, before you do come, send me an early reply 
with a rosy yes. Most affectionately and respectfully, Petka 
Petroff." 

"It's bully, it's superb," praised the tailor. "But it lacks the 
tender touch. It lacks that style which the city women like." 

"I put in the punch, but you can add a love poem from some 
school-book if you like," protested the inn-keeper. "The city girls 
are funny creatures. Sometimes they like the finger, other times 



RUSSIA— NARODNY 179 

the fist. Who knows the taste of your Liza! The waitresses of 
big cities are usually broad-minded and highly educated." 

After the poem was added and another rose glued on the corner 
of the letter, it was mailed, registered, with a note "highly urgent," 
and Petka breathed freely, like one who had survived a great 
ordeal. 

Two months of heavy waiting passed and still no reply from 
Liza. Petka was like one on thorns. His strange romance was 
already known to his neighbors and now everybody was expecting 
the letter from America to furnish the most sensational news in all 
the world. 

One afternoon as the tailor was sewing a pair of trousers the al- 
derman of the village brought him a registered letter from America. 
Nearly half of the village population had gathered outside, curious 
to hear the content of the letter. Petka took tremblingly and 
greatly excited the letter and rushed to Platon, the inn-keeper, all 
the time followed by the crowd. All the audience gathered in the 
inn and Platon was instructed to read it aloud to the gathering. As 
it was a ceremonial event of rare occasion, the inn-keeper stood up, 
and began in a solemn voice: 

"My dear Petka : I am most happy to reply to your valued let- 
ter of the fifteenth of July, that I am glad to accept your proposal. 
But everything must be all right. I can marry only a man of the 
merchant class. I know the business and I can supply you with 
the capital you need. But you must remember that I do not like 
to be fooled and marry a man beneath me. No peasant or tailor 
for me. I stand here very high and cannot ruin my name. You 
have not told me your age, but I suppose you are not an old fogey. 
I will follow this letter next month, so you fix the wedding cere- 
mony, secure all the musicians and manage the meals, drinks and 
such necessities. If this is not agreeable cable me. Your Liza." 



180 DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY 

While Platon was reading the letter Petka gazed dreamily out of 
the window and built, not an air castle, but a large grocery store, 
with showy windows. It seemed as if he saw his store already 
opened, the people going and coming, the shelves filled with 
cans and packages. The sign "Merchant Petka" hung in his 
eyes. 

The letter was like a bomb in the idyllic village. Plans were 
made of the wedding date and elaborate ceremony. The village 
Luga had never witnessed yet a marriage ceremony of this magni- 
tude. The American bride was like a fairy princess of some 
ancient times. Petka was like one in a trance. But Vasska, the 
blacksmith, opposed to the idea of such a strange marriage, 
pounded his hand against the bar, exclaiming: 

"Liza may be all right, but Petka should not marry her. What 
do we know about an American woman? What do we know about 
her habits? I've been told funny stories about such strange 
women. I've heard that nearly every American woman paints her 
cheeks, dyes her hair, wears false teeth, puts up bluffs and does 
everything to deceive a man. Spit at her capital. Besides, this 
American Liza is a woman whom nobody here knows." 

The blacksmith's arguments were taken seriously by the others 
and a gloom came over the gathered gossips. But the inn-keeper, 
who was always optimistic, replied: 

"American Liza must be a refined girl, and she has the money. 
That's what Petka wants, and that's what he will get. So we 
better let the wedding take place and see what will happen. I've 
heard that an American woman looks at the marriage as a business 
proposition, so we let her do what she pleases." 

"Business or no business, but we take the marriage seriously. 
If a man makes up his mind that he likes a woman, he must marry 
her, and once he has married her, no ax or pike shall separate 



RUSSIA— NARODNY 181 

them. No monkeying with married men or women thereafter," 
argued the serious blacksmith. 

Petka turned the conversation to the subject of the wedding meals 
and music. The whole program of the ceremony was analyzed 
and discussed in detail, some maintaining that the American custom 
was to eat with forks and knives from the plates, others that only 
uncooked meat was eaten and frogs served as delicacies. Finally 
the entertainment was arranged and the blacksmith remarked: 

"All city women like fun and don't care about serious affairs. 
They have the theaters and operas for amusements, so we better 
get a real amusement for American Liza. The best fun would be a 
huge hurdy-gurdy or something of that kind, an instrument with 
sensation. Our village violins and harps are too mild for women 
like that Liza." 

After discussing the matter at length, the inn-keeper agreed to 
take care of the entertainment. A short cable was composed and 
sent to Liza and the wedding date clearly explained. All the 
village got alive with the news that Petka was to marry an Ameri- 
can girl by mail. 

The three weeks of preparation for the wedding festival passed 
like a dream. The Sunday, that was to be the final date, began 
bright and cheerful. Petka was hustling to and fro in his newly 
rented house, the front of which was to be arranged for the grocery 
store, strutted like a big rooster preparing the affairs of his flock. 
At the entrance of the house was hung a big flag. Long tables were 
arranged in all the rooms, covered with meats, drinks and delica- 
cies, all prepared in the village. Women were still busy baking 
other foods, frying meats and boiling water for tea or drinks. 
Everybody was busy and everything looked most solemn and im- 
pressive. The host was dressed in a picturesque new suit of 
clothes with a silk scarf around his neck. 



182 DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY 

While the groom was busy with preparing his heart for joy, the 
inn-keeper was solving the problem of tlie entertainment. He 
had constructed, what he thought to be distinctly American, a huge 
music-box, which was to produce the most wonderful tones ever 
heard. This instrument had the appearance of a big wine-cask 
and yet a street-organ at the same time, and was an invention of 
the ingenious inn-keeper. It was practically a barrel, covered 
with illustrations of old Sunday newspapers and county-fair 
posters. To its side was fastened an improvised lever, made from 
a broken cart-wheel. Under this barrel, concealed so that no one 
could see within, were placed three most prominent musicians of 
the village, Ivan with his violin. Semen with his concertina and 
Nicholas with his drum. As soon as the conductor outside pulled 
a string, the lever began to turn around and the musicians in the 
barrel had to start to play. In the corner of the house this strange 
instrument looked like a mysterious engine, one knew not whether 
to expect it to develop into a flying or moving picture machine. 

At last everything was ready. The guests began to arrive and 
the carriage was sent to the town to bring the bride. Everybody 
was in festival attire and all tuned to expect the utmost excitements 
the village had ever had. One could see the people in groups of 
three or four, discussing in a high pitch of voice the wonders of 
the wedding festival or venturing various guesses about the Ameri- 
can bride. The village girls, who were not a little jealous, nudged 
each other and exchanged meaning glances, that Petka was to get 
in a fix he had never been before. All were anxious to see the 
arrival of the two thousand-ruble bride. The blacksmith and the 
inn-keeper were discussing something excitedly. 

"Say what you want, but this kind of matrimonial affair is the 
limit," argued the blacksmith, pushing back his hat. "I can't see 
how a woman comes such a distance and so many weeks to marry 



RUSSIA— NARODNY 183 

Petka, whom she has never seen, and how Petka gets the crazy 
thought to marry a city woman whom he does not know. Some- 
thing is wrong somewhere. This is going to bust sooner or 
later." 

"My dear Vasska, it's the education, the refinement and all that 
which I and you can do without," grunted the inn-keeper. 

Vasska rubbed his fists and spat vigorously. The inn-keeper 
tried to mollify him by saying that he should not take the matter 
so seriously. 

Suddenly the dogs began to bark and the boys shouted : 

"The American bride! Here comes the lady from abroad!" 

All the guests rushed out to see her. And there she was, in a 
big flower-trimmed hat, with a silk parasol, and all the wonderful 
fineries. She looked so elegant, so superior that the village 
women, accustomed to their rural simplicity, felt overawed. The 
groom hurrying with throbbing heart to open the gates of the front- 
yard bowed almost to the ground to the dazzling reality of his 
romantic dreams. He was so confused by this apparition that he 
did not know whether to shout or cry. 

"My gracious, how she is made up!" whispered the women. 

"What a wonderful dress!" whispered the girls. 

"Ain't you Petka? You deary!" exclaimed the bride, aff"ecting 
a foreign accent. 

"Yes, mademoiselle, gracious yes," stammered the groom nerv- 
ously, wiping the tears of joy from his eyes. 

"Gee, Petka, you are a nice boy!" gushed the bride, trying to 
show the quality of her refinement. 

She took his both hands and whispered that he should kiss them 
gracefully in the American manner. Then she leaned her head 
on his shoulder and sighed. These American manners so em- 
barrassed the groom that he blushed and dropped his eyes. But 



184 DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY 

after all, was she not a highly educated American lady? And of 
course, she knew what was proper. 

Though Liza looked ten years older than Petka, yet she had all 
the city air, the American manners and style, and most important 
of all, she had the capital. The first question Liza asked was 
whether they had a manicure, hair-dresser and boot-black in the 
village. No one had ever heard that such functionaries existed, 
so the groom explained excitedly that he would take her after the 
wedding to the town where she could get what she wanted. Petka 
carried the trunk and the five suit-cases into the house, implements 
which no one had ever seen. All the novelties and sensations 
were so great that the guests and the groom felt dazed for a 
moment. 

"Have you got here champagne?" asked the bride, entering the 
house. 

"We do not have such American drinks. We have kvas, beer, 
vodka and all the home-made cordials," stammered the groom. 

"But you must have some high-balls or cocktails at least," went 
on the bride with an affected gesture. 

"My gracious, there we are!" groaned the groom, and shrugged 
denyingly his shoulders. "We've never handled those things here, 
so you must forgive us." 

"Mademoiselle Liza, I beg your pardon," interrupted the inn- 
keeper seriously. "We can arrange the balls and tails, but you 
see we are simple country people and keep our bowels in order. 
City amusements put our stomachs in a bad fix and don't agree 
with us." 

The groom felt embarrassed and did not know what to do. He 
bowed apologetically before his bride and tried to please her in 
every possible way. He imitated her gestures and manners, her 
shrugs and voice. He even kept his hands on his breast, as was 



RUSSIA— NARODNY 185 

Liza's manner. Finally the bride asked whether there was any 
entertainment prepared as she had asked. The groom gave the 
inn-keeper a hint and the latter said that he would do his best. 
The three musicians were already concealed with their instruments 
in the big barrel and the imposing organist began his function. 
Strains of an unique music issued from the decorated music-box. 
Everybody at once rushed into the room. All stared amazed at 
the strange contrivance which played at one and the same time con- 
certina, violin and drum. It was like a miracle, gripping and 
inspiring. 

"I bet you this would interest your American audiences," re- 
marked the inn-keeper to the bride. 

"It beats the Coney Island noise," stammered Liza, and took up 
the conversation with a village woman. 

All the house now was jollity. The room was bursting of the 
powerful music, the laughter and the loud conversation of the 
guests. How it happened no one knows, but one of the women had 
placed a bowl with hot punch on the music box. Whether through 
an accident, or the excitement of the organist, the vessel broke, and 
the punch leaked through the cracks and holes into the instrument. 
Suddenly the music stopped, although the conductor was still indus- 
triously turning the lever. Then were heard mysterious voices 
and sounds as if of muffled exclamations. Everybody looked at 
the music-box, which began to quake and tremble as if a ghost were 
within. Then arose fierce yells and agonizing cries, mixed with 
loud curses. Before anybody could realize what had happened, 
three angry musicians leaped from the music instrument, the 
steaming punch dropping from their heads. 

"Good Lord, what's this?" gasped the men while the women 
shrieked and fled. One of the musicians put his fist under the 
frightened organist and shouted: 



186 DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY 

"I'll pay for this joke, you scoundrel!" 

"Semen, don't be a fool. I didn't do it. By Jove, I didn't 
do it," exclaimed apologetically the organist, trembling. 

"Damn, who did it?" asked the groom excited. 

No one replied. And when the people realized what had hap- 
pened, everybody roared. No one who glanced at the overturned 
music instrument and at the musicians, with their punch-dropping 
heads could restrain their laughter. Even the pompous bride found 
it so funny that she laughed with the rest. 

When the excitement was over and the dessert was ready the 
wedding guests once more took their seats at the table. The inn- 
keeper, thinking that this was the moment to settle the matter of 
dowry, before the actual marriage act could be performed by the 
priest, knocked upon the table for quiet. Then he arose, wiped 
his beard and began: 

"Friends, this is a very unusual ceremony, our best known 
citizen and friend Petka, marrying a girl from America. Petka 
loves Liza, it is all right. But I know and so all our guests know, 
that Petka expected the bride to bring a fat dowry. Now we all 
would like to see the bride place her dowry upon the table before 
she is declared the wife of our friend, Petka. We think that in jus- 
tice to the guests she ought to do that, because it was understood 
that she bring the money and we give her the husband. Don't you 
think, friends and guests, that I am right?" 

Everybody shouted "Bravo, inn-keeper," only the groom and 
the bride sat silent with downcast eyes. Finally the bride glanced 
at Petka, pulled a bag from her dress, opened it and laid a bunch 
of green bills on the table. All eyes stared in awe at the money, 
and the guests were so silent that one could hear the beating of their 
hearts. Only the purring of the cats, looking curiously down 
from the big stove, was to be heard. 



RUSSIA— NARODNY 187 

"Here is the dowry, right here. It is in American money, one 
thousand dollars, which is equal to two thousand rubles in your 
money. It's all in cash," exclaimed the bride proudly. 

The inn-keeper took the bills, looked at them curiously, turned 
them over and over and shook his head. The blacksmith took one 
bill after the other, and did the same. For several minutes every- 
body was quiet. The "organist" who sat next to the inn-keeper, 
took the money, looked at it still more closely and then smelled it. 
Taking one of the bills in his hand, he rose and showed it to all the 
guests and asked: 

"Friends, have you ever seen this kind of money?" 

"No," was the unanimous reply of the guests. 

"Can any one here read American?" asked the blacksmith. 

No one replied. 

"The money is all right. I rushed to reach the train so I had 
no time to exchange it into your rubles," replied the bride. 

"It might be all right," replied the inn-keeper, "but what do 
we know about the American money and its value? I've been 
told many stories of American girls boasting they have money 
enough to buy their husband, but heaven knows. It's a country too 
far away and a language too complicated for us to understand. 
We like to have our stuff on the table before everything is all 
right." 

The bride glanced at the groom. The groom took silently her 
hand, assuring her that he cared nothing for what her dowry was 
worth, if he had only her as his wife. 

"What nonsense! I came on Petka's invitation, and I'll stay 
with him, do you let the priest marry us or not. We can go both 
to America and marry there, but never here," exclaimed the bride, 
tossing her head and snorting her indignation. As she rose, she 
took Petka by his hand and gave this parting thrust: 



188 DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY 

"Do you want or not, but I'll stay with Petka here. We don't 
care for your priest. I keep the American law and know what's 
what." 

"Liza, Liza, listen. Don't make a scandal like that here. Let's 
better harness our horses and get to the priest as fast as we can," 
shouted the excited guests, all following the couple. 




X 




RUSSIA— MAKOW SKY 189 



THE INSANE PRIEST 



A 



PRIEST insane went many days without repose or sleep, 
"My visions are a shadow world but love is real and deep." 
He, like a prophet, staff in hand, sought out a distant shrine. 
"As sacred ash are all my dreams, and fateful love is mine." 
Long, long he knelt and prayed alone, his tears fell unrestrained. 
"My visions are the snow-crowned heights, my love the flood un- 
chained." 
A sacrifice he laid upon that altar far away. 
"My visions are a dream of dawn, my love the radiant day." 
A knife he thrust into his heart, to seal the holy rite. 
"My visions all resplendent glow, my love is like the night." 
And on the altar falling prone, he then gave up his soul. 
"My visions are the lightning's flash, my love the thunder's roll." 
Upon the altar poured his blood, it formed a crimson pall. 
"As his deliriums are my dreams, as death my love my all." 

Sergey Makowsky 

Translation by Constance Pubdy 

Note: To this poem Mr. Reinhold Gliere has composed a magnificent musical 
setting with piano and orchestra accompaniment and dedicated it to a prominent 
Russian revolutionist. 



190 DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY 

WITHOUT A COUNTRY 

vJNE thought awakes us early in the morning, 
One thought follows us the whole day long, 
One thought stabs at night our breast: 
Is my father suffering? 

One sorrow awakes us at dawn like an executioner, 
One sorrow is persecuting us ceaselessly, 
One sorrow is swelling our breast the whole night long: 
Is my mother alive? 

A longing awakes us at daybreak, 
A longing is continually hidden in our heart, 
A longing is burning at night in our breast; 
What of my wife? 

A fear awakes us early like a funeral mass, 
A fear persecutes us and darkens our eyes, 
A fear fills at night our breast with hatred: 
Our sisters are threatened with shame. 

A pain awakes us in the morning like a trumpet, 
With pain is filled every glass we drink 
With pain is secretly weeping our breast: 
Where are our children? 

. . . Only one way will give an answer: 

Through a river of blood and over a bridge of dead! 



SERBIA^BOICH 191 

Woe! you will reach your home where the mother, who died of 

sorrow, 
Does not wait for her son any more. 

M. BoiCH 



Note: M. Boich is a young Serbian poet, now about twenty-six years old, who 
already has a recognized place in modern Serbian Literature. The poem "Without a 
Country" was written after the well-known Serbian tragedy of 1915, and was pub- 
lished last year (March 28) in the ofi&cial Serbian journal "Srpske Novine," which 
now appears at Corfu. 



192 DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY 



INDIAN PRAYER 
TO THE MOUNTAIN SPIRIT 



L 



ORD of the Mountain, 
Reared within the Mountain 
Young Man, Chieftain, 
Hear a young man's prayer! 



Hear a prayer for cleanness. 
Keeper of the strong rain. 
Drumming on the mountain; 
Lord of the small rain 
That restores the earth in newness; 
Keeper of the clean rain, 
Hear a prayer for wholeness. 

Young Man, Chieftain. 
Hear a prayer for fleetness. 
Keeper of the deer's way. 
Reared among the eagles, 
Clear my feet of slothness. 
Keeper of the paths of men, 
Hear a prayer for straightness. 

Hear a prayer for braveness. 
Lord of the thin peaks, 
Reared amid the thunders; 
Keeper of the headlands 
Holding up the harvest. 



''---, / ^. 



'J-T -'-. 



/ 



^o 




" BIG MOON " 

BLACK FOOT CHIEF 

By John Sargent 
From Original Drawing 



AN INTERLUDE— AUSTIN 193 

Keeper of the strong rocks 
Hear a prayer for staunchness. 

Young Man, Chieftain, 
Spirit of the Mountain! 

Interpreted by 




194 DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY 



TO AMERICA— 4 JULY, 1776 

WHEN England's king put English to the horn,^ 
To England thus spake England over sea, 
"In peace be friend, in war my enemy"; 
Then countering pride with pride, and lies with scorn, 
Broke with the man ^ whose ancestor had borne 
A sharper pain for no more injury. 
How otherwise should free men deal and be. 
With patience frayed and loyalty outworn? 

No act of England's shone more generous gules 
Than that which sever'd once for all the strands 
Which bound you English. You may search the lands 
In vain, and vainly rummage in the schools. 
To find a deed more English, or a shame 
On England with more honor to her name. 

1 To "put to the horn" was to declare an outlawry. 

2 The "man" is George III, his "ancestor," Charles I. 







/ ^„ 



31 •■'.■TS., J^ 



"A PROFILE" 

By John Sargent 
From Original Drawing 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA— ELIOT 195 

THE NEED OF FORCE TO WIN AND MAINTAIN 

PEACE 

MUST, then, gentle and reasonable men and women give over 
their sons to the National Government to be trained for the 
devilish work of war? Must civilized society continue to fight 
war with war? Is not that process a complete failure? Shall we 
not henceforth contend against evil-doing by good-doing, against 
brutality by gentleness, against vice in others solely by virtue in 
ourselves? 

There are many sound answers to these insistent queries. One 
is the policeman, usually a protective and adjusting force, but 
armed and trained to hurt and kill in defense of society against 
criminals and lunatics. Another is the mother who blazes into vio- 
lence, with all her little might, in defense of her child. Even the 
little birds do that. Another is the instinctive forcible resistance 
of any natural man to insult or injury committed or threatened 
against his mother, wife, or daughter. The lions and tigers do as 
much. A moving answer of a different sort is found in words writ- 
ten by Mme. le Verrier to the parents of Victor Chapman on her 
return from his funeral in the American Church in Paris — "It . . . 
has brought home to me the beauty of heroic death and the mean- 
ing of life." 

The answer from history is that primitive Governments were 
despotic, and in barbarous societies might makes right; but that 
liberty under law has been wrung from authority and might by 
strenuous resistance, physical as well as moral, and not by yielding 
to injustice or practising non-resistance. The Dutch Republic, the 
British Commonwealth, the French Republic, the Italian and Scan- ' 
dinavian constitutional monarchies, and the American republics 



196 DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY 

have all been developed by generations of men ready to fight and 
fighting. 

So long as there are wolves, sheep cannot form a safe community. 
The precious liberties which a few more fortunate or more vigorous 
nations have won by fighting for them generation after generation, 
those nations will have to preserve by keeping ready to fight in 
their defense. 

The only complete answer to these arguments in favor of using 
force in defense of liberty is that liberty is not worth the cost. 
In free countries to-day very few persons hold that opinion. 



OzJuL^SLc 




George Barnard: Sculptor 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA— GIBBONS 197 
WOMAN AND MERCY 

WOMAN and Mercy — to think of one is to think of the other, 
and yet the suggestion of ideas is purely Christian. The 
ancient world knew of a few great women who transcended the 
conditions of society in those days and helped, each one her coun- 
try, in some extraordinary way. Thus Deborah helped the people 
of God in a time of terrible difficulty. And even the Pagan world 
was not without its Semiramis and its Portia. When mercy came 
into the world with Christianity the dispensation of it was largely 
committed to the gentle hands of women, for since men have be- 
lieved that God has taken a woman to be His human mother, the 
position of every woman has been that of a mother and of a queen. 
The wife has become the guardian of the internal affairs of the 
home as the husband is of its external affairs. 

Whenever women have acted up to the noble ideals of woman- 
hood preached by the Christian religion, they have received honor, 
respect, deference and almost worship from the ruder sex. 

It gives me great pleasure to think that in our own country so 
many women have banded themselves together for such a noble 
ideal as that embodied in the very name of "The Militia of Mercy." 
Here in her true sphere, as nurse, woman will shed the gentle light 
of mercy over the gory battle Held and amid the pain and wounds 
of the hospital wards; or, if she is not called to such active partici- 
pation she will find means to hold up the hands of those more ac- 
tively engaged, and in countless ways will she be able to mitigate 
the evils of this most terrible of all wars, and not least of all 
because of the gift of piety with which Almighty God has so gen- 
erously endowed her. Her unceasing prayers will ascend to the 
throne of God for those engaged in this terrible struggle, and 



198 DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY 

mercies and blessings will be drawn down upon multitudes of 
people whom she has never seen. 

I bid Godspeed to The Militia of Mercy, and I hope that every 
American woman who can will take part in this most womanly and 
most patriotic work. 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA— GRIFFITHS 199 
JOAN OF ARC— HER HERITAGE 

I SAW in Orleans three years ago the celebration of the 487th 
Anniversary of the deliverance of the ancient city by Joan 
of Arc. 

The flower of the French army passed before me, the glorious 
sunlight touching sword and lance and bayonet tip until they 
formed a shimmering fretwork of steel. Then came the City 
Fathers in democratic dress — and following them, the dignitaries 
of the Church, in purple and crimson and old lace, and a host 
of choir boys singing Glory to God in the Highest, and finally in 
his splendid scarlet robe, a cardinal symbolical of power and 
majesty and dominion. 

In whose honor was all this gorgeous pageantry? In honor of 
a simple peasant girl, who saw or thought she saw visions — it is 
perfectly immaterial whether she did or not — and who heard or 
fancied she heard — it matters not — voices calling to her out of the 
silences of the night to go forth and save France. Soldiers and 
clergy and populace, Catholics and Protestants and pagans united 
in paying homage to the courage of a woman. And I thought as I 
watched that brilliant spectacle in the shadow of the old cathedral, 
that thousands of women in the twentieth century in England and 
America, and France and Germany and all the Nations are serving 
in a diff^erent way, it is true, from the way in which Joan of Arc 
served France, but none the less effectively. Aye, even more so, 
as they go forth clad not in mail, but in Christian love to help 
mankind. In the very forefront of this shining host are the trained 
nurses, following the standard uplifted by Florence Nightin- 
gale. 

When I see a trained nurse in her attractive cap and gown I al- 



200 DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY 

ways feel that a richer memory, a finer intention has been read 
into life. Wherever they go they carry healing with them. 

To maintain this army of militant good will and helpfulness, 
and to increase it as occasion requires is an obligation so imperative 
that it cannot be evaded. 

Never was it as urgent as it is to-day, that there should be 
generous response to the appeal for nurses. 

If we are often discouraged in our philanthropic work, it is not 
because we consider what we are doing in a detached way, inde- 
pendent of its world relationships. If we could only realize that 
we are part of the mighty army composed of all nationalities and 
races and creeds, an army of life, not of death, marching against 
disease and suffering and misery and sin, we would be inspired to 
wage the conflict with greater vigor, until our vision of the world 
freed from suffering, was realized. 

When the realization comes, it will not come with shouting and 
tumult, but will come quietly and beautifully as the sun makes its 
triumphant progress through the heavens, gradually conquering 
the night until at last the earth is flooded with glorious warmth and 
light and all the formless shapes that loved darkness rather than 
light silently steal away and are forgotten. 

John Lewis Griffiths 

Note: Although the above selection was part of an address delivered in London 
in 1911, its truth is more apparent today than ever before. 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA— JOWETT 201 

THINGS WHICH CANNOT BE SHAKEN 

THERE are seasons in life when everything seems to be shaking. 
Old landmarks are crumbling. Venerable foundations are 
upheaved in a night, and are scattered abroad as dust. Guid- 
ing buoys snap their moorings, and go drifting down the channel. 
Institutions which promised to outlast the hills collapse like a 
stricken tent. Assumptions in which everybody trusted burst like 
air-balloons. Everything seems to lose its base, and trembles in 
uncertainty and confusion. 

Such seasons are known in our personal life. One day our 
circumstances appear to share the unshaken solidity of the planet, 
and our security is complete. And then some undreamed-of antag- 
onism assaults our life. We speak of it as a bolt from the blue! 
Perhaps it is some stunning disaster in business. Or perhaps death 
has leaped into our quiet meadows. Or perhaps some presump- 
tuous sin has suddenly revealed its foul face in the life of one of 
our children. And we are "all at sea!" Our little, neat hypoth- 
eses crumple like withered leaves. Our accustomed roads are all 
broken up, our conventional ways of thinking and feeling, and the 
sure sequences on which we have depended vanish in a night. It 
is experiences like these which make the soul cry out with the 
psalmist, in bewilderment and fear, — "My foot slippeth!" His 
customary foothold had given way. The ground was shaking 
beneath him. The foundations trembled. 

And such seasons are known in the life of nations. An easy- 
going traditionalism can be overturned in a single blast. Conven- 
tional standards, which seemed to have the fixedness of the stars, 
are blown to the winds. Political and economic safeguards go 
down like wooden fences before an angry sea. The customary 



202 DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY 

foundations of society are shaken. We must surely have had such 
experiences as these during the past weeks and months. What was 
unthinkable has become a commonplace. The impossible has hap- 
pened. Our working assumptions are in ruins. Common securi- 
ties have vanished. And on every side men and women are whis- 
pering the question, — Where are we? We are all staggered! 
And everywhere men and women, in their own way, are whispering 
the confession of the psalmist, — "My foot slippeth!" 

Well, where are we? Amid all these violations of our ideals, 
and the quenching of our hopes, in this riot of barbarism and 
unutterable sorrow, where are we? Where can we find a footing? 
Where can we stay our souls? Where can we set our feet as upon 
solid rock? Amid the many things which are shaking what things 
are there which cannot be shaken? 

"Things which cannot be shaken." Let us begin here: The 
supremacy of spiritual forces cannot be shaken. The obstrusive 
circumstances of the hour shriek against that creed. Spiritual 
forces seem to be overwhelmed. We are witnessing a perfect car- 
nival of insensate materialism. The narratives which fill the col- 
umns of the daily press reek with the fierce spectacle of labor 
and achievement. And yet, in spite of all this appalling outrage 
upon the senses, we must steadily beware of becoming the victims 
of the apparent and the transient. Behind the unchartered riot 
there hides a power whose invisible energy is the real master of the 
field. The ocean can be lashed by the winds into indescribable 
fury, and the breakers may rise and fall in crushing weight and 
disaster; and yet behind and beneath all the wild phenomena there 
is a subtle, mystical force which is exerting its silent mastery even 
at the very height of the storm. We must discriminate between the 
phenomenal and the spiritual, between the event of the hour and the 
drift oi the year, between the issue of a battle and the tendency of a 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA— JOWETT 203 

campaign. All of which means that "While we look at the things 
which are seen, we are also to look at the things which are not seen." 
Well, look at them. 

The power of truth can never be shaken. The force of disloy- 
alty may have its hour of triumph, and treachery may march for a 
season to victory after victory; but all the while truth is secretly 
exercising her mastery, and in the long run the labor of falsehood 
will crumble into ruin. There is no permanent conquest for a lie. 
You can no more keep the truth interred than you could keep the 
Lord interred in Joseph's tomb. You cannot bury the truth, you 
cannot strangle her, you cannot even shake her! You may burn 
up the records of truth, but you cannot impair the truth itself! 
When the records are reduced to ashes truth shall walk abroad as 
an indestructible angel and minister of the Lord! "He shall give 
His angels charge over thee," and truth is one of His angels, and 
she cannot be destroyed. 

There was a people in the olden days who sought to find security 
in falsehood, and to construct a sovereignty by the aid of broken 
covenants. Let me read to you their boasts as it is recorded by the 
prophet Isaiah: "We have made a covenant with death, and with 
hell are we at agreement: when the overflowing scourge shall pass 
through, it shall not come unto us, for we have made lies our refuge, 
and under falsehood have we hid ourselves." And so they ban- 
ished truth. But banished truth is not vanquished truth. Truth is 
never idle; she is ever active and ubiquitous, she is forever and 
forever our antagonist or our friend. "Therefore thus saith the 
Lord God . . . your covenant with death shall be disannulled, and 
your agreement with hell shall not stand . . . and the hail shall 
sweep away the refuge of lies, and the waters shall overflow the 
hiding-places." Thus said the Lord! We may silence a fort, but 
we cannot paralyze the truth. Amid all the material convulsions 



204 DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY 

of the day the supremacy of truth remains unshaken. "The mouth 
of the Lord hath spoken it." 

"Things which cannot be shaken!" What is there which cannot 
be shaken? The passion of freedom is one of the rarest of spirit- 
ual flames, and it can not be quenched. Make your appeal to 
history. Again and again militarism has sought to crush it, but it 
has seemed to share the very life of God. Brutal inspirations have 
tried to smother it, but it has breathed an indestructible life. 
Study its energy in the historical records of the Book or in annals 
of a wider field. Study the passion of freedom amid the oppres- 
sions of Egypt, or in the captivity of Babylon, or in the servitude of 
Rome. How does the passion express itself? "If I forget thee, 
Jerusalem, may my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth, and may 
my right hand forget her cunning!" Study it in the glowing pages 
of the history of this country, that breath of free aspiration which no 
power of armament, and no menace of material strength was ever 
able to destroy. The mightiest force in all those days was not the 
power of threat, and powder, and sword, but that breath of invinc- 
ible aspiration which was the very breath of God. And when we 
gaze upon stricken Belgium to-day, and look upon her sorrows, and 
her smitten fields, and her ruined cities, and her desolate homes, we 
can firmly and confidently proclaim that the breath of that divinely 
planted aspiration, her passion of freedom, will prove to be 
mightier than all the materialistic strength and all the prodigious 
armaments which seem to have laid her low. It is a reality which 
cannot be shaken. 

There are other spiritual forces which we might have named, and 
which would have manifested the same incontestable supremacy: 
there is the energy of meekness, that spirit of docility which com- 
munes with the Almighty in hallowed and receptive awe: there is 
the boundless vitality of love which lives on through midnight after 




THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

By George Burroughs Torrey 
From Ihe Original Painting in the Gallery of the Brooklyn Museum 



VNITED STATES OF AMERICA— JOWETT 205 

midnight, unfainting and unspent: there is the inexhaustible energy 
of faith which hold on and out amid the massed hostilities of all its 
foes. You cannot defeat spirits like these, you cannot crush and 
destroy them. You cannot hold them under, for their supremacy 
shares the holy sovereignty of the eternal God. "Not by might, 
nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord" ; and these spirits, 
the spirit of truth, the spirit of freedom, the spirit of meekness and 
love, are in fellowship with the divine Spirit, and therefore shall 
they remain unshaken. 




206 DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY 

SOMEWHERE IN FRANCE 

uOOMEWHERE in France" — the day is tranquil, the sky un- 
kD vexed, the green earth without a wound as I write; yet 
"somewhere in France" the day is torn with clamors, the sky 
is soiled with man's mounting hatred of man, and long, open 
wounds lie cruelly across the disputed earth. "Somewhere in 
France" — my mind goes back to remembered scenes: the crowd 
blocking the approach to a depot; white faces and staring eyes, eyes 
that alternately fear and hope, and in the crush a trickling gray 
line of returning permissionaires. "Somewhere in France" — on 
such a perfect day as this I see a little village street nestled among 
the trees, and hear the sound of the postman's reluctant feet tapping 
over the cobblestones — the postman that comes with the relentless- 
ness of Fate — and at every house the horror of the black envelope. 
"Somewhere in France" the great immemorial cathedrals and the 
dotted, cool, moss-covered churches are filled with supplicating 
women and the black-framed, golden locks of children lifting their 
eyes before the Great Consoler as the sun breaks through the paling 
candle-flames. "Somewhere in France" — in its crowded stations 
I remember a proud womanhood, gray in the knowledge of sorrow, 
speeding its young sons and speaking the Spartan words. "Some- 
where in France," in its thousand hospitals, the ministering white- 
clad angels are moving in their long vigils, calm, smiling, inspired. 
"Somewhere in France" — I see again imperishable fragments of 
remembered emotions; the women working in the vineyards of 
Champagne, careless of fate or the passing shells ; the orphan chil- 
dren playing in the ruins of Rheims; a laughing child in bom- 
barded Arras running out to pick up an exploded shell, a child in 
whom daily habit has brought fear into contempt; a skeleton of a 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA— JOHNSON 207 

church in far-flung Bethany, that still lives in a sea of fire, where 
a black-coated priest of the unflinching faith was holding his mass 
among kneeling men before an altar hidden in the last standing 
corner from which the shredded ruins had been swept. 

"Somewhere in France" — I remember the volcanic earth, the 
strewn ruin of all things, the prostrate handiwork of man mingled 
with the indignant bowels of the earth, and from a burrowed hole a 
poilu laughing out at us in impertinent greeting, with a gaiety 
which is more difficult than courage. 

"Somewhere in France" — in bombarded Arras, was it not? — I 
remember an old woman, a very old woman, leaning on her cane 
as she peered from her cellar door within a hundred yards of the 
smoldering cathedral. I wonder if she still lives, for Arras will 
be struggling back to life now. 

"Somewhere in France" — what thronged memories troop at 
these liberating words! And yet, through all the passing drama of 
remembered little things, what I see always before my eyes is the 
spiritual rise of Verdun. Verdun, heroic sister of the Marne; 
Verdun, the battling heart of France — whose stained slopes are 
anointed by the blood of a million men. Verdun! The very 
name has the upward fury and descending shock of an attacking 
wave dying against an immemorial shore. To have seen it as I 
was privileged to see it in that historic first week of August, 1915, 
at the turning of the tide, at the moment of the retaking of Fleury 
and Thiaumont, was to have stood between two great spectacles: 
the written page of a defense such as history has never seen, and 
the future, glowing with the unquenchable fire of undying France. 
When I think of the flaming courage of that heroic race, my imag- 
ination returns always to the vision of that defense — not the patient 
fortitude before famine of Paris, Sebastopol or Mafeking, but 
that miracle of patience and calm in the face of torrential rains of 



208 DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY 

steel which for months swept the human earth in such a deluge 
as never before had been sent in punishment upon the world. This 
was no adventure such as that gambling with fate which in all times 
and in all forms has stirred the spirit of man. Regiment after 
regiment marched down into the maw of hell, into the certainty of 
death. They went forward, not to dare, but to die, in that sub- 
limest spirit of exaltation and sacrifice of which humanity is cap- 
able, that the children of France might live free and unafraid, 
Frenchmen in a French land. They went in regiment after regi- 
ment, division after division — living armies to replace the ghostly 
armies that had held until they died. Days without nights, weeks 
without a breathing spell — five months and more. They lie there 
now, the human wall of France, that no artillery has ever mastered 
or ever will, to prove that greater than all the imagined horror of 
man's instinct of destruction, undaunted before the new death that 
rocks the earth beneath him and pollutes the fair vision of the sky 
above, the spirit of man abides superior. Death is but a material 
horror; the will to live free is the immortal thing. 




UNITED STATES OF AMERICA— STONE 209 
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS 

IT IS worth while to explain how the world's news is gathered 
and furnished in a newspaper issued at one cent a copy. First, 
as to the foreign news, which is, of course, the most difficult to 
obtain and the most expensive. In normal times there are the four 
great agencies which, with many smaller and tributary agencies, 
are covering the whole world. These four agencies are, as above 
noted, the Renter Telegram Company, Ltd., of London, which 
assumes responsibility for the news of the great British Empire, 
including the home land, every colony except Canada, and the 
Suzerain, or allied countries, as Egypt, Turkey, and even China 
and Japan; and the Agence Havas of Paris, taking care of the 
Latin countries, France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Belgium, Switzer- 
land and South America as well as Northern Africa; and the Wolff 
Agency of Berlin, reporting the happening in the Teutonic, Scan- 
dinavian, and Slav nations. These three organizations are allied 
with The Associated Press in an exclusive exchange arrangement. 
Subordinate to these agencies is a smaller one in almost every 
nation, having like exchange agreements with the larger com- 
panies. 

Thus it happens that there is not a place of moment in the 
habitable globe that is not provided for. Moreover, there is 
scarcely a reporter on any paper in the world who does not, in a 
sense, become a representative of all these four agencies. Not 
only are there these alliances, but in every important capital of 
every country, and in a great many of the other larger cities abroad 
there are "A. P." men, trained by long experience in its offices in 
this country. This is done because, first, the organization is natur- 
ally anxious to view every country with American eyes; and, 



210 DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY 

second, because a number of the agencies spoken of are under the 
influence of their Governments and, therefore, not always trust- 
worthy. They are relied upon for a certain class of news, as for 
instance, accidents by flood and field, where there is no reason for 
any misrepresentation on their part. But where it is a question 
which may involve national pride or interest, or where there is a 
possibility of partisanship or untruthfulness, the "A. P." men are 
trusted. 

Now, assume that a fire has broken out in Benares, the sacred 
city of the Hindus, on the banks of the Ganges, and a hundred or 
a thousand people have lost their lives. Not far away, at Alla- 
habad or at Calcutta, is a daily paper, having a correspondent at 
Benares, who reports the disaster fully. Some one on this paper 
sends the story, or so much of it as is of general rather than of 
local interest, to the agent of the Renter Company at Calcutta, Bom- 
bay, or Madras; and thence it is cabled to London and Hongkong, 
and Sydney and Tokio. At each of these places there are Asso- 
ciated Press men, one of whom picks it up and forwards it to New 
York. 

Thus the wide world is combed for news, and in an incredibly 
short time is delivered and printed everywhere. When Pope XIII 
died in Rome the fact was announced by an Associated Press des- 
patch in the columns of a San Francisco paper in nine minutes from 
the instant when he breathed his last. And this message was re- 
peated back to London, Paris, and Rome, and gave those cities the 
first information of the event. When Port Arthur was taken by 
the Japanese in the war of 1896 it came to us in New York in fifty 
minutes, although it passed through twenty-seven relay offices. 
Few of the operators transmitting it knew what the despatch 
meant. But they understood the Latin letters, and sent it on from 
station to station, letter by letter. 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA— STONE 211 

When Peary came back from his great discovery in the Arctic 
Sea he reached Winter Harbor, on the coast of Labrador, and 
from there sent me a wireless message that he had nailed the Stars 
and Stripes to the North Pole. This went to Sydney, on Cape 
Breton Island, and was forwarded thence by cable and telegraph 
to New York. 

The organization is cooperative in its character. As a condition 
of membership, each one belonging agrees to furnish to his fellow- 
members, either directly or through the Association, and to them 
exclusively, the news of his vicinage, as gathered by him for his 
own paper. This constitutes the large fountain from which our 
American news supply is drawn. But, as in the case of the for- 
eign official agencies, if there be danger that an individual member 
is biassed, or if the matter be one of high importance, our own 
trained and salaried staff men do the reporting. For this purpose, 
as well as for administrative work, there is a bureau in every 
leading city. 

For the collection and interchange of this information we lease 
from the various telephone and telegraph companies, and operate 
with our own employees, something like fifty thousand miles of 
wires, stretching out in every direction through the country and 
touching every important center. To reach smaller cities, the tele- 
phone is employed. Everywhere in every land, and every moment 
of every day, there is ceaseless vigil for news. 

People frequently ask what it costs thus to collect the news of 
the world. And we cannot answer. Our annual budget is be- 
tween three and four million dollars. But this makes no account 
of the work done by the individual papers all over the world in 
reporting the matters and handling the news over to the agencies. 
Neither can we estimate the number of men and women engaged 
in this fashion. It is easy to measure the cost of certain specific 



212 DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY 

events; as, for instance, we expended twenty-eight thousand dol- 
lars to report the Martinique disaster. And the Russo-Japanese 
war cost us over three hundred thousand dollars. 

Such is an outline of our activities in what we call normal times. 
But these are not normal times. When the great European war 
broke on us, eighteen months ago, all of the processes of civiliza- 
tion seemed to go down in an hour. And we suffered in common 
with others. Our international relations for the exchange of news 
were instantly dislocated. We had been able to impress the gov- 
ernments abroad with the value of an impartial and unpurchasable 
news service, as opposed to the venal type of journalism, which was 
too common on the European continent. And in our behalf they 
had abolished their censorships. They had accorded us rules 
assuring us great rapidity in the transmission of our messages 
over their government telegraph lines. They had opened the doors 
of their chancelleries to our correspondents, and told them freely 
the news as it developed. 

All the advantages ceased. The German news agency was pro- 
hibited from holding any intercourse with the English, French, or 
Russian organizations. Simultaneously, like commerce was inter- 
dicted in the other countries. The virtue of impartial news-gather- 
ing at once ceased to be quoted at par. Everywhere, in all of the 
warring lands the Biblical rule that "he that is not with me is 
against me," became the controlling view. Government telegrams 
were obviously very important and there was no time to consider 
anywhere any of the promised speed in sending our despatches. 
Finally, censorships were imposed. This was quite proper in prin- 
ciple. Censorships are always necessary in time of war. But it 
is desirable, from every point of view, that they be intelligent, 
and this is not always the case. 

Nevertheless, we have fared pretty well in the business of re- 




^a~<A/*~^ 







General Manager of the Associated Press 



V NIT ED STATES OF AMERICA— STONE 213 

porting this war. We have made distinct progress in teaching the 
belligerents that we hold no brief for any one of them, and, while 
each would much rather have us plead his cause, they are coming 
to see why we cannot and ought not to do so. And our men are 
everywhere respected and accorded as large privileges as, per- 
haps, in the light of the tension of the hour, could be reasonably 
asked. 



214 DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY 

PAN AND THE POT-HUNTER 

THEY are not many who are privileged to learn that the forces 
of the Wilderness are as gods, distributing benefits, and, 
from such as have earned them, taking even handed reprisals. 
Only the Greeks of all peoples realized this in its entirety, and 
them the gods repaid with the pure joy of creation which is the 
special prerogative of gods. 

But Greenhow had heard nothing of Greeks save as a symbol of 
all unintelligibility, and of the gods not at all. His stock was out 
of England by way of the Tennessee mountains, drifting Pacific 
coastward after the war of the Rebellion, and he was a Pot Hunter 
by occasion and inclination. The occasion he owned to being born 
in one of the bays of die southerly Sierras where the plenitude of 
wild life reduced pot hunting to the degree of easy murder. 

A Pot Hunter, you understand, is a business man. He is out for 
what he can get, and regards game laws as an interference with 
the healthful interactions of competition. Greenhow potted quail 
in the Temblors where by simply rolling out of his blanket he 
could bag two score at a shot as they flocked, sleek and slatey blue, 
down the runways to the drinking places. He took pronghom at 
Castac with a repeating rifle and a lure of his red necktie held aloft 
on a cleaning rod, and packed them four to a mule-back down the 
Tejon to Summerfield. He shot farrow does and fished out of 
season, and had never heard of the sportsmanly obligation to throw 
back the fingerlings. Anything that made gunning worth while 
to the man who came after you was, by Greenhow's reckoning, a 
menace to pot hunting. 

There were Indians in those parts who could have told him bet- 
ter — notable hunters who never shot swimming deer nor does with 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA— AUSTIN 215 

fawn, nor any game unaware; who prayed permission of the Wuld 
before they went to hunt, and left offal for their little brothers of 
the Wilderness. Indians know. But Greenhow, being a business 
man, opined that Indians were improvident, and not being even 
good at his business, fouled the waters where he camped, left man 
traces in his trails and neglected to put out his fires properly. 

Whole hillsides where the deer had browsed were burnt off bare 
as your hand in the wake of the pot hunter. Thus in due course, 
though Greenhow laid it to the increasing severity of game laws 
framed in the interests of city sportsmen, who preferred working 
hard for their venison to buying it comfortably in the open market, 
pot hunting grew so little profitable that he determined to leave it 
off altogether and become a Settler. Not however until he had 
earned the reprisal of the gods, of whom in a dozen years he had 
not even become aware. 

In the Spring of the year the Tonkawanda irrigation district was 
opened, he settled himself on a spur of San Jacinto where it plunges 
like a dolphin in the green swell of the camissal, and throws up a 
lacy foam of chaparral along its sides. Below him, dotted over 
the flat reach of the mesa, the four square clearings of the Home- 
steaders showed along the line of the great canal, keen and blue 
as the cutting edge of civilization. There was a deep-soil level 
under the nose of San Jacinto — rabbits used to play there until 
Greenhow took to potting them for his breakfast — and a stream 
bubbled from under the hill to waste in the meadow. 

Greenhow built a shack under a live oak there and fancied him- 
self in the character of proprietor. He reckoned that in the three 
years before his vineyard came into bearing, he could pot-hunt in 
the hills behind his clearing for the benefit of the Homesteaders. 

It was altogether a lovely habitation. Camise grew flush with 
the meadow and the flanks of San Jacinto shivered and sparkled 



216 DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY 

with the wind that turned the thousand leaves of the chaparral. 
Under the wind one caught at times the slow deep chuckle of the 
water. Greenhow should have been warned by that. In just such 
tones the ancient Greeks had heard the great god Pan laughing in 
the woods under Parnassus, — which was Greek indeed to the Pot 
Hunter. 

Greenhow was thirty-four when he took out his preemption 
papers and planted his first acre of vines. For reasons best known 
to the gods, the deer kept well away from that side of San Jacinto 
that year. Greenhow enlarged the meadow and turned up ground 
for a garden; he became acquainted with his neighbors and learned 
that they had prejudices in favor of game regulations, also that 
one of them had a daughter. She had white, even teeth that flashed 
when she laughed; the whole eff'ect of her was as sound and as 
appetizing as a piece of ripe fruit. Greenhow told her that the 
prospect of having a home of his own was an incentive such as pot- 
hunting held out to no man. He looked as he said it, a very 
brother to Nimrod, for as yet the Pot had not marked him. 

He stood straight; his eyes had the deep, varying blueness of 
lake water. Little wisps and burrs, odors of the forest clung about 
his clothing; a beard covered his slack, formless mouth. When 
he told the Homesteader's daughter how the stars went by on 
heather planted headlands and how the bucks belled the does at 
the bottom of deep canons in October, she heard in it the call of the 
trail and young Adventure. Times when she would see from the 
level of her father's quarter section the smoke of the Pot Hunter's 
cabin rising blue against the glistening green of the live oak, she 
thought that life might have a wilder, sweeter tang there about the 
roots of the mountain. 

In his second Spring when the camissal foamed all white with 
bloom and the welter of yellow violets ran in the grass under it 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA— AUSTIN 217 

like fire, Greenhow built a leanto to his house and made the dis- 
covery that the oak which jutted out from the barranca behind it, 
was of just the right height from the ground to make a swing for a 
child, which caused him a strange pleasant embarrassment. 

"Look kind o' nice to see a little feller playin' round," he ad" 
mitted to himself, and the same evening went down to call on the 
Homesteader's daughter. 

That night the watchful guardians of the Wild sent the mule- 
deer to harry the man who had been a pot-hunter. A buck of three 
years came down the draw by the watercourse and nibbled the 
young shoots of the vines where he could reach them across the 
rabbit proof fencing that the settler had drawn about his planted 
acres. Not that the wire netting would have stopped him; this 
was merely the opening of the game. Three days later he spent 
the night in the kitchen garden and cropped the tips of the newly 
planted orchard. After that the two of them put in nearly the 
whole of the growing season dodging one another through the close 
twigged manzanita, lilac, laurel and mahogany that broke upward 
along the shining bouldered coasts of San Jacinto. The chaparral 
at this season took all the changes of the incoming surf, blue in the 
shadows, darkling green about the heads of the gulches, or riffling 
with the white under side of wind-lifted leaves. Once its mur- 
murous swell had closed over them, the mule-deer would have his 
own way with the Pot Hunter. Often after laborious hours spent 
in repairing the garden, the man would hear his enemy coughing 
in the gully behind the house, and take up his rifle to put in the 
rest of the day snaking through the breathless fifteen foot cover, 
only to have a glimpse of the buck at last dashing back the late light 
from glittering antlers as he bounded up inaccessible rocky stairs. 
This was the more exasperating since Greenhow had promised 
the antlers to the Homesteader's daughter. 



218 DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY 

When the surface of the camissal had taken on the brown tones 
of weed under sea water and the young clusters of the grapes were 
set — for this was the year the vineyard was expected to come into 
bearing — the mule-deer disappeared altogether from that district, 
and Greenhow went back hopefully to rooting the joint grass out 
of the garden. But about the time he should have been rubbing 
the velvet off his horns among the junipers of the high ridges, the 
mule-deer came back with two of his companions and fattened on 
the fruit of the vineyard. They went up and down the rows ruin- 
ing with selective bites the finest clusters. During the day they 
lay up like cattle under the quaking aspens beyond the highest, 
wind-whitened spray of the chaparral, and came down to feast day 
by day as the sun ripened the swelling amber globules. They 
slipped between the barbs of the fine wired fence without so much 
as changing a leg or altering their long, loping stride; and what 
they left the quail took. 

In pattering droves of hundreds they trecked in from the camise 
before there was light enough to shoot by, and nipped once and 
with precision at the ripest in every bunch. Afterward they dusted 
themselves in the chaparral and twitted the proprietor with soft 
contented noises. At the end of the October rut the deer came back 
plentifully to the Tonkawanda District, and Greenhow gave up the 
greater part of the rainy season to auditing his account with them. 
He spent whole days scanning the winter colored slope for the 
flicker and slide of light on a hairy flank that betrayed his enemy, 
or, rifle in hand, stalking a patch of choke cherry and manzanita 
within which the mule-deer could snake and crawl for hours by 
intricacies of doubling and back tracking that yielded not a square 
inch of target and no more than the dust of his final disappearance. 
Wood gatherers heard at times above their heads the discontented 
whine of deflected bullets. Windy mornings the quarry would 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA— AUSTIN 219 

signal from the high barrens by slow stiff legged bounds that 
seemed to invite the Pot Hunter's fire, and at the end of a day's 
tracking among the punishing stubs of the burnt district, Green- 
how returning would hear the whistling cough of the mule-deer in 
the ravine not a rifle shot from the house. 

In the meantime rabbits burrowed under the wire netting to 
bark his young trees, and an orchardist who held the job of ditch 
tender along the Tonkawanda, began to take an interest in the 
Homesteader's daughter. Seldom any smoke went up now from 
the cabin under the dolphin's nose. Occasionally there rose a 
blue thread of it far up on the thinly forested crest of San Jacinto 
where the buck, bedded in the low brush between the bosses of the 
hills, kept a look out across the gullies from which Greenhow at- 
tempted to ambuscade him. Day by day the man would vary the 
method of approach until almost within rifle range, and then the 
wind would change or there would be the click of gravel underfoot, 
or the scrape of a twig on stiff overalls, and suddenly the long oval 
ears would slope forward, the angular lines flow into grace and mo- 
tion and the game would begin again. 

Greenhow killed many deer that season and got himself under 
suspicion of the game warden, but never the deer; and a very subtle 
change came over him, such a change as marks the point at which 
a man leaves off being hunter to become the hunted. He began to 
sense, with vague reactions of resentment, the personality of Power. 

It was about the end of the rains that the ditch tender who was 
also an orchardist, took the Homesteader's daughter to ride on his 
unoccupied Sunday afternoon. He had something to say to her 
which demanded the wide, uninterrupted space of day. They 
went up toward the roots of the mountain between the green dikes 
of the chaparral, and he was so occupied with watching the pome- 
granite color of her cheeks and the nape of her neck where the sun 



220 DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY 

touched it, that he failed to observe that it was she who turned the 
horses into the trail that led off the main road toward the shack of 
the Pot Hunter. The same change that had come over the man 
had fallen on his habitation. Through the uncurtained window 
they saw the heaps of unwashed dishes and the rusty stove, and 
along the eaves of the leanto, a row of antlers bleaching. 

"There's really no hope for a man," said the ditch tender, "once 
he gets that habit. It's worse than drink." 

"Perhaps," said the Homesteader's daughter, "if he had had 
any one at home who cared ..." She was looking down at the 
bindweed that had crept about the roots of a banksia rose she had 
once given the Pot Hunter out of her own garden, and she sighed, 
but the ditch tender did not notice that either. He was thinking 
this was so good an opportunity for what he had to say that he drew 
the horses toward the end of the meadow where the stream came in, 
and explained to her particularly just what it meant to a man to 
have somebody at home who cared. 

The Homesteader's daughter leaned against the oak as she lis- 
tened, and lifted up her clear eyes with a light in them that was like 
a flash out of the deep, luminous eye of day, which caused the ditch 
tender the greatest possible satisfaction. He did not think it 
strange, immediately he had her answer, to hear the titter of the 
leaves of the lilac and the sudden throaty chuckle of the water. 

"I am so happy," laughed the ditch tender, "that I fancy the 
whole world is laughing with me." 

All this was not so long ago as you would imagine to look at the 
Pot Hunter. As time went on the marking of the Pot came out on 
him very plainly. He acquired the shifty, sideling gait of the 
meaner sort of predatory creatures. His clothes, his beard, his 
very features have much the appearance that his house has, as if 






:i<ed it, i' 

!... ] ".r „■, ,,n T.:. •' 

along liie eave^^i of t 

"There's 
lie gets «W bail 

"Perhaps,' s. 
any one ■ '- ■•■ 
bind wee 
once gi\ 
but the 
this wa;^ 

Ihr i. 



ihat It was she who turned tJbe 
k-d oH tile main road toward the shack of 

' that had come over the man 

.. 'Ugh tJhe uncurtained window 
' tUshes and the rusty stove, and 
of antlers bleaching. 

id the ditch tender, "once 

. 'ii iie iida Had 
ooking down at the 

SOUVENIR DE JEMfeSfef '^ '^!'' ^'^'^ 

Reproduced from the Original Pastel ' '^ ^^^ sighcd, 

By Penrhyn Stanlaws ^-^ was thinking 

y that he drew 

ream came in, 

Mil to a man to 



teiir 
a fltl: 

tender iiitJ 



"I am «f 
whole w 



ist the oak as she lis- 
^ in them that was like 
Abich caused the ditch 
Hq did not think it 
u. hear the titter of the 

chL ^.kle of the water. 

tendt -, "that I fancy the 



All this V. 
Pot Hunter. \ 
him veiy plain 
^r.'^aner sort of 



long ago as you would ima 
m the marking of tb 
. ^iiired the shiftv ~ 
V' creatures. His 



features have much the appearance thai .his ho 



.'ui on 
;f the 
i, his 
. as if 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA— AUSTIN 221 

the owner of it were distant on another occupation, and the camise 
has regained a considerable portion of his clearing. Owing to the 
vigilance of the game warden his is not a profitable business; also 
he is in disfavor with the homesteaders along the Tonkawanda who 
credit him with the disappearance of the mule-deer, once plentiful 
in that district. A solitary specimen is occasionally met by sports- 
men along the back of San Jacinto, exceedingly gun wary. But if 
Greenhow had known a little more about the Greeks it might all 
have turned out quite differently. 




222 DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY 

MEN OF THE SEA 

THE afternoon sun etched our shadows on the whitewashed wall 
behind us. Acres of grain and gorse turned the moorland 
golden under a windy blue sky. In front of us the Bay of Biscay 
burned sapphire to the horizon. 

"You men of the sea," I said, "attain a greater growth of soul 
than do we whose roots are in the land. You are men of wider 
spiritual vision, of deeper capacity than are we." 

The coastguard's weatherbeaten visage altered subtly. 

"How can that be. Monsieur? Our sins stalk us like vast red 
shadows. We live violently, we men of the sea." 

"But you really live — spiritually and physically. You attain a 
spiritual growth, a vision, an understanding, a depth seldom 
reached by us: — a wide kindness, a charity, a noble humanity 
outside the circumference of our experience." 

He said, looking seaward out of vague, sea-gray eyes: "We 
drink too deeply. We love too often. We men of the sea have 
great need of intercession and of prayer." 

"Not your 

"There was a girl at Rosporden. . . . And one at Bannalec. 
. . . And others . . . from the ends of the earth to the ends of it 
. . . We Icelanders drank deep. And afterwards ... in the 
China seas. . . ." 

His gray Breton eyes brooded on the flowing sapphire of the sea; 
the low sun painted his furrowed face red. 

"Not one among you but lays down his life for others as 
quietly and simply as he fills his pipe. From the rocking mizzen 
you look down calmly upon the world of men tossing with petty 
and complex passions — look down with the calm, kindly compre- 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA— CHAMBERS 223 

hension of a mature soul which has learned something of Immortal 
toleration. The scheme of things is clearer to you than to us; 
your pity, wiser; your faith more logical." 

"We are children," he muttered, "we men of the sea." 

"I have tried to say so — in too many words," said I. 

My dog looked up at me, then with a slight sigh settled himself 
again beside the gamebag and tucked his nose under his flank. 
On the whitewashed walls of the ancient, ruined fort behind us our 
shadows towered in the red sunset. 

I turned and looked at the roofless, crumbling walls, then at the 
coast where jeweled surf tumbled, stained with crimson. 

These shores had been washed with a redder stain in years 
gone by: these people were forever stamped with the irradicable 
scar of suff'ering borne by generations dead. The centuries had 
never spared them. 

And, as I brooded there, watching two peasants, father and son, 
grubbing out the gorse below us to make a place for future wheat, 
the rosy surf beyond seemed full of little rosy children and 
showy women, species of the endless massacres that this sad land 
had endlessly endured. 

"They struck you hard and deep," I said, thinking of the past. 

"Deep, Monsieur," he replied, understanding me. "Deep as 
your people's hatred." 

"Oh, pour ga" — he made a vague gesture. "The dead are 
dead," he said, leaning over and opening my gamebag to look into 
it and sort and count the few braces of partridge, snipe and 
widgeon. 

Presently, from below, the peasants at work in the gorse, shouted 
up to us something that I did not understand. 

They were standing close together, leaning on mattock and spade, 
grouped around something in the gorse. 



224 DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY 

"What do they say?" I asked. 

"They have found a soldier's body." 

"A body?" 

"Long dead, Monsieur. The skeleton of one of these who 
scourged this coast in the old days." 

He rose and started leisurely down through the flowering gorse. 
I followed, and my dog followed me. 

In the shallow excavation there lay a few bones and shreds and 
bits of tarnished metal. 

I stooped and picked up a button and a belt buckle. The royal 
arms and the Regimental number were decipherable on the 
brasses. One of the peasants said: 

"In Quimper lives a rich man who pays for relics. God, in his 
compassion, sends us poor men these bones." 

The coastguard said: "God sends them to you for decent inter- 
ment. Not to sell." 

"But," retorted the peasant, "these bones and bits of brass be- 
longed to one of those who came here with fire and sword. Need 
we respect our enemies who slew without pity young and old? And 
these bones are very ancient." 

"The living must respect the dead, Jean Le Locard." 

"I am poor," muttered Le Locard. "We Bretons are born to 
misery and sorrow. Life is very hard. Is it any harm if I sell 
these bones and brasses to a rich man, and buy a little bread for 
my wife and little ones?" 

The coastguard shook his head gravely: "We Bretons may go 
hungry and naked, but we cannot traffic in death. Here lies a sol- 
dier, a hundred years hidden under the gorse. Nevertheless — " 

He touched his cap in salute. Slowly the peasants lifted their 
caps and stood staring down at the bones, uncovered. 

"Make a grave," said the coastguard simply. He pointed up at 




VICE ADMIRAL WILLIAM SOWDEN SIMS 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA— CHAMBERS 225 

the old graveyard on the cliff above us. Then, touching my elbow, 
he turned away with me toward the little hamlet across the moors. 

"Let us find the Cure," he murmured. "We men of the sea 
should salute the death God sends with the respect we owe to all 
His gifts to man." 

Our three gigantic shadows led us back across the moor, — my 
dog, myself, and the gray-eyed silent man who knew the sea, — and 
something perhaps, of the sea's Creator: — and much of his fellow 
men. 



W«>.wJ»-VAi .QXftwJUuw^ 



226 DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY 

JIM— A SOLDIER OF THE KING 

WE WERE machine gunners of the British Army stationed 
"Somewhere in France" and had just arrived at our rest 
billets, after a weary march from the front line sector. 

The stable we had 'to sleep in was an old, ramshackle affair, 
absolutely over-run with rats. Great, big, black fellows, who used 
to chew up our leather equipment, eat our rations, and run over 
our bodies at night. German gas had no effect on these rodents; 
in fact, they seemed to thrive on it. 

The floor space would comfortably accommodate about twenty 
men lying down, but when thirty-three, including equipment, were 
crowded into it, it was nearly unbearable. 

The roof and walls were full of shell holes. When it rained, 
a constant drip, drip, drip was in order. We were so crowded 
that if a fellow was unlucky enough (and nearly all of us in this 
instance were unlucky) to sleep under a hole, he had to grin and 
bear it. It was like sleeping beneath a shower bath. 

At one end of the billet, with a ladder leading up to it, was a 
sort of grain bin, with a door in it. This place was the head- 
quarters of our guests, the rats. Many a stormy cabinet meeting 
was held there by them. Many a boot was thrown at it during the 
night to let them know that Tommy Atkins objected to the matter 
under discussion. Sometimes one of these missiles would ricochet, 
and land on the upturned countenance of a snoring Tommy, and for 
about half an hour even the rats would pause in admiration of his 
flow of language. 

On the night in question we flopped down in our wet clothes, 
and were soon asleep. As was usual, No. 2 gun's crew were to- 
gether. 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA— EMPEY 227 

The last time we had rested in this particular village, it was 
inhabited by civilians, but now was deserted. An order had been 
issued, two days previous to our arrival, that all civilians should 
move farther back of the line. 

I had been asleep about two hours when I was awakened by 
Sailor Bill shaking me by the shoulder. He was trembling like a 
leaf, and whispered to me: 

"Wake up, Yank, this ship's haunted. There's some one aloft 
who's been moaning for the last hour. Sounds like the wind in 
the rigging. I ain't scared of humans or Germans, but when it 
comes to messin' in with spirits it's time for me to go below. Lend 
your ear and cast your deadlights on that grain locker, and listen." 

I listened sleepily for a minute or so, but could hear nothing. 
Coming to the conclusion that Sailor Bill was dreaming things, I 
was again soon asleep. 

Perhaps fifteen minutes had elapsed when I was rudely 
awakened. 

"Yank, for God's sake, come aboard and listen!" I listened, 
and sure enough, right out of that grain bin overhead came a 
moaning and whimpering, and then a scratching against the door. 
My hair stood on end. Blended with the drip, drip of the rain, and 
the occasional scurrying of a rat overhead, that noise had a super- 
natural sound. I was really frightened; perhaps my nerves were a 
trifle unstrung from our recent tour in the trenches. 

I awakened "Ikey" Honney, while Sailor Bill roused "Happy" 
Houghton and "Hungry" Foxcroft. 

Hungry's first words were, "What's the matter, breakfast ready?" 

In as few words as possible, we told them what had happened. 
By the light of a candle I had lighted, their faces appeared as white 
as chalk. Just then the whimpering started again, and we were 
frozen with terror. The tension was relieved by Ikey's voice: 



228 DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY 

"I admit I'm afraid of ghosts, but that sounds like a dog to me. 
Who's going up the ladder to investigate?" 

No one volunteered. 

I had an old deck of cards in my pocket. Taking them out, I 
suggested cutting, the low man to go up the ladder. They agreed. 
I was the last to cut. I got the ace of clubs. Sailor Bill was 
stuck with the five of diamonds. Upon this, he insisted that it 
should be the best two out of three cuts, but we overruled him, and 
he was unanimously elected for the job. 

With a "So long, mates, I'm going aloft," he started toward the 
ladder, with the candle in his hand, stumbling over the sleeping 
forms of many. Sundry grunts, moans, and curses followed in his 
wake. 

As soon as he started to ascend the ladder, a "tap-tap-tap" could 
be heard from the grain bin. We waited in fear and trembling 
the result of his mission. Hungry was encouraging him with 
"Cheero, mate, the worst is yet to come." 

After many pauses. Bill reached the top of the ladder and opened 
the door. We listened with bated breath. Then he shouted : 

"Blast my deadlights, if it ain't a poor dog! Come alongside, 
mate, you're on a lee shore, and in a sorry plight." 

Oh, what a relief those words were to us. 

With the candle in one hand and a dark object under his arm, 
Bill returned and deposited in our midst the sorriest-looking speci- 
men of a cur dog you ever set eyes on. It was so weak it 
couldn't stand. But that look in its eyes — just gratitude, plain 
gratitude. Its stump of a tail was pounding against my mess tin, 
and sounded just like a message in the Morse code. Happy swore 
that it was sending SOS. 

We were like a lot of school children, every one wanting to help, 
and making suggestions at the same time. Hungry suggested 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA— EMPEY 229 

giving it something to eat, while Ikey wanted to play on his infernal 
Jew's harp, claiming it was a musical dog. Hungry's suggestion 
met our approval, and there was a general scramble for haversacks. 
All we could muster was some hard bread and a big piece of cheese. 

His nibs wouldn't eat bread, and also refused the cheese, but 
not before sniffing at it for a couple of minutes. I was going to 
throw the cheese away, but Hungry said he would take it. I gave 
it to him. 

We were in a quandary. It was evident that the dog was starving 
and in a very weak condition. Its coat was lacerated all over, 
probably from the bites of rats. That stump of a tail kept sending 
SOS against my mess tin. Every tap went straight to our hearts. 
We would get something to eat for that mutt if we were shot for it. 

Sailor Bill volunteered to burglarize the quartermaster's stores 
for a can of unsweetened condensed milk, and left on his perilous 
venture. He was gone about twenty minutes. During his ab- 
sence, with the help of a bandage and a capsule of iodine, we 
cleaned the wounds made by the rats. I have bandaged many a 
wounded Tommy, but never received the amount of thanks that 
that dog gave with its eyes. 

Then the billet door opened and Sailor Bill appeared. He 
looked like the wreck of the Hesperus, uniform torn, covered with 
dirt and flour, and a beautiful black eye, but he was smiling, and 
in his hand he carried the precious can of milk. 

We asked no questions, but opened the can. Just as we were 
going to pour it out, Happy butted in and said it should be mixed 
with water; he ought to know, because his sister back in Blighty had 
a baby, and she always mixed water with its milk. We could not 
dispute this evidence, so water was demanded. We would not 
use the water in our water bottles, as it was not fresh enough for 
our new mate. Happy volunteered to get some from the well — 



230 DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY 

that is, if we would promise not to feed his royal highness until he 
returned. We promised, because Happy had proved that he was 
an authority on the feeding of babies. By this time the rest of the 
section were awake and were crowding around us, asking numerous 
questions, and admiring our newly found friend. Sailor Bill 
took this opportunity to tell of his adventures while in quest of the 
milk. 

"I had a fair wind, and the passage was good until I came 
alongside the quartermaster's shack, then the sea got rough. The 
porthole was battened down, and I had to cast it loose. When I 
got aboard, I could hear the wind blowing through the rigging of 
the supercargo (quartermaster sergeant snoring), so I was safe. I 
set my course due north to the ration hold, and got my grappling 
irons on a cask of milk, and came about on my homeward-bound 
passage, but something was amiss with my wheel, because I ran 
nose on into him, caught him on the rail, amidships. Then it was 
repel boarders, and it started to blow big guns. His first shot put 
out my starboard light, and I keeled over. I was in the trough 
of the sea, but soon righted, and then it was a stem chase, with me 
in the lead. Getting into the open sea, I made a port tack and hove 
to in this cove with the milk safely in tow." 

Most of us didn't know what he was talking about, but sur- 
mised that he had gotten into a mix-up with the quartermaster ser- 
geant. This surmise proved correct. 

Just as Bill finished his narration, a loud splash was heard, and 
Happy's voice came to us. It sounded very far off: 

"Help, I'm in the well! Hurry up, I can't swim!" Then a few 
unintelligible words intermixed with blub! blub! and no more. 

We ran to the well, and way down we could hear an awful 
splashing. Sailor Bill yelled down, "Look out below; stand from 
under; bucket coming!" With that he loosed the windlass. In a 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA— EMPEY 231 

few seconds a spluttering voice from the depths yelled up to us, 
"Haulaway!" 

It was hard work, hauling him up. We had raised him about 
ten feet from the water, when the handle of the windlass got loose 
from our grip, and down went the bucket and Happy. A loud 
splash came to us, and, grabbing the handle again, we worked like 
Trojans. A volley of curses came from that well which would 
have shocked Old Nick himself. 

When we got Happy safely out, he was a sight worth seeing. He 
did not even notice us. Never said a word, just filled his* water 
bottle from the water in the bucket, and went back to the billet. 
We followed. My mess tin was still sending SOS. 

Happy, though dripping wet, silently fixed up the milk for the 
dog. In appetite, the canine was a close second to Hungry Fox- 
croft. After lapping up all he could hold, our mascot closed his 
eyes and his tail ceased wagging. Sailor Bill took a dry flannel 
shirt from his pack, wrapped the dog in it, and informed us : 

"Me and my mate are going below, so the rest of you lubbers 
batten down and turn in." 

We all wanted the honor of sleeping with the dog, but did not 
dispute Sailor Bill's right to the privilege. By this time the bunch 
were pretty sleepy and tired, and turned in without much coaxing, 
as it was pretty near daybreak. 

Next day we figured out that perhaps one of the French kiddies 
had put the dog in the grain bin, and, in the excitement of packing 
up and leaving, had forgotten he was there. 

Sailor Bill was given the right to christen our new mate. 
He called him "Jim." In a couple of days Jim came around all 
right, and got very frisky. Every man in the section loved that 
dog. 

Sailor Bill was court-martialed for his mix-up with the quarter- 



232 DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY 

master sergeant, and got seven days field punishment No. 1. This 
meant that two hours each day for a week he would be tied to the 
wheel of a limber. During these two-hour periods Jim would be 
at Bill's feet, and, no matter how much we coaxed him with choice 
morsels of food, he would not leave until Bill was untied. When 
Bill was loose, Jim would have nothing to do with him — just walked 
away in contempt. Jim respected the king's regulations, and had 
no use for defaulters. 

At a special meeting held by the section, Jim had the oath of 
allegiance read to him. He barked his consent, so we solemnly 
swore him in as a soldier of the Imperial British Army, fighting for 
king and country. Jim made a better soldier than any one of us, 
and died for his king and country. Died without a whimper of 
complaint. 

From the village we made several trips to the trenches ; each time 
Jim accompanied us. The first time under fire he put the stump of 
his tail between his legs, but stuck to his post. When "carrying 
in" if we neglected to give Jim something to carry, he would make 
such a noise barking that we soon fixed him up. 

Each day Jim would pick out a different man of the section to 
follow. He would stick to this man, eating and sleeping with him, 
until the next day, and then it would be some one's else turn.. 
When a man had Jim with him, it seemed as if his life were 
charmed. No matter what he went through, he would come out 
safely. We looked upon Jim as a good-luck sign, and believe me, 
he was. 

Whenever it came Ikey Honney's turn for Jim's company, he 
was over-joyed, because Jim would sit in dignified silence, listening 
to the jew's-harp. Honney claimed that Jim had a soul for music, 
which was more than he would say about the rest of us. 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA— EMPEY 233 

Once, at daybreak, we had to go over the top in an attack. A 
man in the section named Dalton was selected by Jim as his mate 
in this affair. 

The crew of gun No. 2 were to stay in the trench for over-head 
fire purposes, and, if necessary, to help repel a probable counter- 
attack by the enemy. Dalton was very merry, and hadn't the least 
fear or misgiving as to his safety, because Jim would be with him 
through it all. 

In the attack, Dalton, closely followed by Jim, had gotten about 
sixty yards into No Man's Land, when Jim was hit in the stomach 
by a bullet. Poor old Jim toppled over, and lay still. Dalton 
turned around, and, just as he did so, we saw him throw up his 
hands and fall face forward. 

Ikey Honney, who was No. 3 on our gun, seeing Jim fall, scram- 
bled over the parapet, and, through that rain of shells and bullets, 
raced to where Jim was, picked him up, and, tucking him under 
his arm, returned to our trench in safety. If he had gone to rescue 
a wounded man in this way he would have no doubt been awarded 
the Victoria Cross. But he only brought in poor bleeding, dying 
Jim. 

Ikey laid him on the fire step alongside of our gun, but we could 
not attend to him, because we had important work to do. So he 
died like a soldier, without a look of reproach for our heartless 
treatment. Just watched our every movement until his lights 
burned out. After the attack, what was left of our section gathered 
around Jim's bloodstained body. There wasn't a dry eye in the 
crowd. 

Next day, we wrapped him in a small Union Jack belonging to 
Happy, and laid him to rest, a soldier of the king. 

We put a little wooden cross over his grave which read : 



234 DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY 

PRIVATE JIM 

MACHINE-GUN COMPANY 

KILLED IN ACTION 

APRIL 10, 1916 

A DOG WITH A MAN's HEART 

Although the section has lost lots of men, Jim is never forgotten. 





GENERAL JOHN J. PERSHING 

Photograph taken for " The Defenders of Democracy " 



VISITED STATES OF AMERICA— FERBER 235 



HEEL AND TOE 

THAT man — it could only have been a man — who invented the 
Klinger darning and mending machine struck a blow at mar- 
riage. Martha Eggers, bending over her work in the window 
of the Elite Hand Laundry (washing delivered same day if left 
before 8 A. m.) never quite evolved this thought in her mind. 
When one's job is that of darning six bushels of socks a day, not to 
speak of drifts of pyjamas and shirts, there remains very little time 
for philosophizing. 

The window of the Elite Hand Laundry was a boast. On a line 
strung from side to side hung snowy, creaseless examples of the 
ironer's art. Pale blue tissue paper, stuffed into the sleeves and 
front of lace and embroidery blouses cunningly enhanced their 
immaculate virginity. White pique skirts, destined to be grimed 
by the sands of beach and tee, dangled like innocent lambs before 
the slaughter. Just behind this starched and glistening ambush 
one glimpsed the bent head and the nimble fingers of Martha 
Eggers, first aid to the unwed. 

As she sat weaving, in and out, in and out, she was a twentieth 
century version of any one of the Fates, with the Klinger darner 
and mender substituted for distaff and spindle. There was some- 
thing almost humanly intelligent in the workings of Martha's ma- 
chine. Under its glittering needle she would shove a sock whose 
heel bore a great, jagged, gaping wound. Your home darner, 
equipped only with mending egg, needle, and cotton, would have 
pronounced it fatal. But Martha's modem methods of sock sur- 
gery always saved its life. In and out, back and forth, moved the 
fabric under the needle. And slowly, the wound began to heal. 
Tack, tack, back and forth. The operation was completed. 



236 DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY 

"If I see you many more Mondays," Martha would say, grimly, 
tossing it into the heap at her side, "there won't be anything left of 
the original cloth. I should think people would realize that this 
laundry dams socks, but it doesn't manufacture 'em." 

Before the advent of the ingenious mending machine I suppose 
more men than would care to admit it married largely because they 
grew so tired of seeing those eternal holes grinning back at them 
from heel and toe, and of feeling for absent buttons in a hastily 
donned shirt. The Elite laundry owed much of its success to the 
fact that it advertised alleviation for these discomforts. 

If you had known Martha as I knew her you would have found a 
certain pathos in the thought of this spare spinster performing for 
legions of unknown unseen men those homely, intimate tasks that 
have long been the duty of wife or mother. For Martha had no 
men-folks. Martha was one of those fatherless, brotherless, hus- 
bandless women who, because of their state, can retain their illu- 
sions about men. She had never known the tragedy of setting forth 
a dinner only to have hurled at her that hateful speech beginning 
with, "I had that for lunch." She had never seen a male, collar- 
less, bellowing about the house for his laundry. She had never be- 
held that soul-searing sight — a man in his trousers and shirt, his 
suspenders dangling, his face lathered, engaged in the unbecoming 
rite of shaving. 

Her knowledge of the home habits of the male biped she gleaned 
from the telltale hints of the inanimate garments that passed 
through her nimble hands. She could even tell character and per- 
sonality from deductions gathered at heel and toe. She knew, for 
example, that F. C. (in black ink) was an indefatigable fox trotter 
and she dubbed him Ferdy Cahn, though his name, for all she knew, 
might have been Frank Callahan. The dancing craze, incidentally, 
had added mountainous stacks to Martha's already heaped up bins. 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA— FERBER 237 

The Elite Laundry served every age and sex. But Martha's de- 
partment was, perforce, the unwed male section. No self-respect- 
ing wife or mother would allow laundry-darned hose or shirts to 
reflect on her housekeeping habits. And what woman, ultra- 
modem though she be, would permit machine-mended stockings to 
desecrate her bureau drawers? So it was that Martha ministered, 
for the most part, to those boarding house bachelors living within 
delivery -wagon proximity to the Elite Laundry. 

It was early in May that Martha first began to notice the white 
lisle socks marked E. G. She picked them from among the great 
heap at her work table because of the exquisite fineness of the 
darning that adorned them. It wasn't merely darning. It was 
embroidery. It was weaving. It was cobweb tapestry. It 
blended in with the original fabric so intimately that it required an 
expert eye to mark where darning finished and cloth began. Mar- 
tha regarded it with appreciation unmarred by envy, as the artisan 
eye regards the work of the artist. 

"That's his mother's darning," she thought, as she smoothed it 
with one work-scarred finger. "And she doesn't live here in 
Chicago. No, sir! It takes a small town mother to have the 
time and patience for that kind of work. She's the kind whose 
kitchen smells of ginger cookies on Saturday mornings. And 
I'll bet if she ever found a moth in the attic she'd call the fire de- 
partment. He's her only son. And he's come to the city to work. 
And his name — his name is Eddie." 

And Eddie he remained for the months that followed. 

Now, there was nothing uncanny in Martha Eggers' deduction 
that a young man who wears white hose, miraculously darned, is a 
self-respecting young man, brought up by a worshiping mother 
who knows about ginger cookies and winter underwear, and whose 
Monday washing is fragrant with the clean-smelling scent of green 



238 DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY 

grass and sunshine. But it was remarkable that she could pick 
this one needle from the haystack of socks and shirts that towered 
above her. She ran her hand through hundreds of garments in 
the day's work. Some required her attention. Some were guilt- 
less of rent or hole. She never thought of mating them. That 
was the sorter's work. But with Eddie's socks it was different. 
They had not, as yet, required the work of her machine needle. 
She told herself, whimsically, that when the time came to set her 
crude work next to the masterly effects produced by the needle of 
Eddie's ma every fiber in her would shrink from the task. Of 
course Martha did not put it in just that way. But the thought was 
there. And bit by bit, week by week, month by month, the life, 
and aims, and ambitions, and good luck and misfortunes of this 
country boy who had come to the call of the city, were unfolded 
before the keen eye of the sparse spinster who sat stitching away 
in the window of the Elite Laundry. 

For a long, long time the white hose lacked reenforcements, so 
that they began to grow thin from top to toe. Martha feared that 
they would go to pieces in one irremediable catastrophe, like the 
one-hoss shay. Evidently Eddie's job did not warrant unnecessary 
expenditures. Then the holes began to appear. Martha tucked 
them grimly under the glittering needle of the Klinger darner and 
mender but at the first incision she snapped the thread, drew out 
the sock, and snipped the stitches. 

"His ma'd have a fit. I'll just roll 'em up, and take 'em home 
with me to-night and darn 'em by hand." She laughed at her- 
self, a little shame-faced laugh, but tender, too. 

She did darn them that night, in the twilight, and in the face of 
the wondering contempt of Myrt. Myrt dwelt across the hall in 
five-roomed affluence with her father and mother. She was one 
of the ten stenographers employed by the Slezak Film Company. 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA— FERBER 239 

There existed between the two women an attraction due to the law 
of opposites. Myrt was nineteen. She earned twelve dollars a 
week. She knew all the secrets of the moving picture business, 
but even that hideous knowledge had left her face unscarred. 
Myrt's twelve was expended wholly upon the embellishment of 
Myrt. Myrt was one of those asbestos young women upon whom 
the fires of life leave no mark. She regarded Martha Eggers, 
who dwelt in one room, in the rear, across the hall, with that 
friendly contempt which nineteen, cruelly conscious of its charms, 
bestows upon plain forty. 

She strolled into Martha Eggers' room now to find that lady 
intent upon a white sock, darning needle in hand. She was work- 
ing in the fast-fading light that came through her one window. 
Myrt, kimono-clad, stared at her in unbelief. 

"Well, I've heard that when actors get a day off they go to the 
theater. I suppose it's the same idea. I should think you'd get 
enough darning and mending from eight A. M. to six p. m. without 
dragging it home with you." 

"I'm doing it for a friend," said Martha, her head bent over her 
work. 

"What's his name?" 

"Eddie." 

"Eddie what?" 

Martha blushed, pricked her finger, bent lower. "Eddie — 
Eddie Grant." 

At the end of the next six weeks every pair of Eddie Grant's 
hose, heel and toe, bore the marks of Martha's workmanship. 
Then, quite suddenly, they ceased to appear. Had he gone back 
home, defeated? Had he moved to another neighborhood? Had 
he invested in a fresh supply of haberdashery? On Tuesday of the 
seventh week E. G.'s white hose appeared once more. Martha 



240 DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY 

picked them from among the heap. Instantly she knew. Clum- 
sily, painstakingly, they had been darned by a hand all unac- 
customed to such work. A masculine hand, as plucky as it was 
awkward. 

"Why, the poor kid ! The poor little kid ! Lost his job for six 
weeks, and did his own washing and mending." 

That night she picked out the painfully woven stitches and re- 
placed them with her own exquisite workmanship. 

Eddie's new job was evidently a distinct advance. The old socks 
disappeared altogether. They had been darned until each one 
resembled a mosaic. In their place appeared an entirely new set, 
with nothing but the E. G. inked upon them by the laundry to dis- 
tinguish them from hundreds of others. Sometimes Martha 
missed them entirely. Then, suddenly, E. G. blossomed into silk, 
with clocking up the side, and Martha knew that he was in love. 
She found herself wondering what kind of girl she was, and 
whether the woman in the little town that was Back Home to Eddie 
would have approved of her. One day there appeared a pair of 
lovesick lavenders, but they never again bloomed. Evidently 
she was the kind of a girl who would be firm about those. Then, 
for a time — for two long weeks — E. G.'s hose were black; somber, 
mournful, unrelieved black. They had quarreled. After that 
they brightened. They became numerous, and varied. There 
was about them something triumphant, ecstatic. They rose to a 
paeon. 

"They're engaged," Martha told herself. "I hope she's the 
right kind of a girl for Eddie." 

Then, as they sobered down and even began to require some of 
Martha's expert workmanship she knew that it was all right. 
"She's making him save up." 

Six months later the Elite Laundry knew E. G. no more. 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA— FERBER 241 

Myrt, strolling into Martha's room one evening, as was her 
wont, found that severe-faced lady suspiciously red-eyed. Even 
Myrt, the unimaginative, sensed that some unhappiness had Martha 
in its grip. 

"What's matter?" 

"Oh, I don't know. Kinda lonesome, I guess. What's the news 
down at your place?" 

"News! Nothing ever happens in our office. Honestly, some 
days I think I'll just drop dead, it's so slow. I took three hours 
dictation from Hubbell this morning. He's writing the 'Dangers 
of Dora' series, and I almost go to sleep over it. He's got her 
now where she's chained in the cave with the tide coming up, on a 
deserted coast, and nobody for miles around. I was tickled to 
death when old Slezak called me away to fill out the contract blanks 
for him and Willie Kaplan. Kaplan's signed up with the Slezak's 
for three years at a million and a half a year. He stood over me 
while I was filling it out — him and his brother Gus — as if I was 
going to put something over on 'em when they weren't looking." 

"My land! How exciting! It must be wonderful working in a 
place like that." 

Myrt yawned, and stretched her round young arms high above 
her head. 

"I don't see anything exciting about it. Of course it isn't as 
bad as your job, sitting there all day, sewing and mending. It isn't 
even as if you were sewing on new stuff, like a dressmaker, and 
really making something out of it. I should think you'd go 
crazy, it's so uninteresting." 

Martha turned to the window, so that her face was hidden from 
Myrt. "Oh, I don't know. Darning socks isn't so bad. Depends 
on what you see in 'em." 

"See in 'em!" echoed Miss Myrtle Halperin. "See! Well for 



242 DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY 

the love of heaven what can you see in mending socks, besides 
holes!" 

Martha did not answer. Myrt, finding things dull, took herself 
off, languidly. At the door she turned and looked back on the 
stiff little figure seated in the window with its face to the gray 
twilight. 

"What's become of your friend What's-his-name that you used 
to darn socks for at home? Grant, wasn't it? Eddie Grant?" 

"That was it," answered Martha. "He's married. He and 
his wife, they've got to visit Eddie's folks back home, on their 
wedding trip. I miss him something terrible. He was just like 
a son to me." 



tXvA^t- -fjUA/U. 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA— GARRISON 243 
THOSE WHO WENT FIRST 

A DISTANT bugle summoned them by day, 
A far flame beckoned them across the night. 
They rose — they flung accustomed things away, — 
The habit of old days and new delight. 
They heard — they saw — they turned them over-seas, — 
Oh, Land of ours, rejoice in such as these! 

This was no call that sounded at their door. 
No wild torch flaming in their window space, — 
Yet the quick answer went from shore to shore, 
The swift feet hastened to the trysting place, 
Laughing, they turned to death from peace and ease, — 
Oh, Land of ours, be proud of such as these! 

High hearts — great hearts — whose valor strikes for us 

Out of the awful Dissonance of war 

This perfect note, — in you the chivalrous 

Young Seekers of the Grail re-live once more, — 

Acclaimed of men, or fallen where none sees. 

Oh, Land of ours, be glad of such as these! 



/X^^^^//s^ K^:.4^z*^it?;»ir 



244 DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY 

A SUMMER'S DAY 

ONCE I wrote a story of a woman's day in Paris, a Perfect 
Day. It had to do with the buying of all the lovely trappings 
that are the entrappings of the animal which Mr. Shaw believes 
woman endlessly pursues. One of the animals was in the story, 
and there was food and moonlight, music and adventure. 

I never sold that marvelous tale. For years it has peeked out at 
me from a certain pigeon hole in my desk with the anguish of a 
prisoner in the Black Hole of Calcutta, and with as little hope for 
its liberation into the glad air of a free press. Yet it is with me 
now in Paris. In that last distracted moment of packing, when all 
sense of what is needed has left one, it was thrust into a glove case 
like contraband cigarettes. There may have been some idea of 
remolding it with a few deceiving touches — make a soldier of 
the hero probably — but with the "love interest" firmly remaining. 
There was only one Perfect Day to a woman, I thought. 

That was some weeks ago. I am now writing on the back of 
that romance for lack of paper, writing of another day, wonder- 
ing as I work if the present day's adventures will have any quality 
that might hold the reader's eye. I dare not ask for the reader's 
heart when love does not stalk through the pages. 

Paris is now an entrenched camp but one is not awakened by 
bugles, and the beat of drums is unheard as the troops march 
through the city. It was the regular "blump-blump" of military 
boots past my window which possibly aroused me into activity, 
although the companies crossing from station to cantonment no 
longer turn the head of the small boy as he rolls his hoop along 
the Champs Elysees. This troubles me, and I always go to the 
curb to watch them when I am in the street. 




*'ONCE THE GIANT TOY OF A PEOPLE WHO FROLICKED 

From the Original Water Color 



By Walter Hale 



VISITED STATES OF AMERICA— HALE 245 

There was an instant's hesitation before I pulled up the re- 
fractory Venetian blind — the right rope so eager to rise, the left 
so indifferent to its improvement — an instant's dread. I was 
afraid "they" would be hopping about even this early in the morn- 
ing, hopping, hopping — the jerking gait of the mutilated — the 
little broken waves of a sea of "horizon blue." But they must 
have been just getting their faces washed at the Salon, where once 
we went to see pictures and now find compositions more dire than 
the newest schools of painting. 

On the other side the stretch of chestnuts, the taxicabs, returned 
to their original mission, were already weaving about in their 
effort to exterminate each other. Battling at the Marne had been 
but a slight deviation in their mode of procedure, yet when a cab 
recently ran down and killed a bewildered soldier impeded by a 
crutch strange to him, Paris raised its voice in a new cry of rage. 
Beyond the Champs Elysees, far beyond, rose the Eiffel tower. 
Capable, immune so far from the attacks of the enemy, its very 
outlines seem to have taken on a greater importance. Once the 
giant toy of a people who frolicked, it now serves in its swift 
mission as the emblem of a race more gigantic than we had con- 
ceived. 

Is it not a relieving thought to such of us as still can play, that 
spirit, whether in the bosom of the boulevardier or his country 
cousin playing bowls in the cool of the evening, is the same that 
projects itself brilliantly across the battlefield; that the flash of a 
woman's eye as she invites a conquest is the flame upon the altar 
when sacrifice is needed; that the very gaiety which makes one 
laugh is a force to endure the deepest pits that have been dug for 
mankind. Even as I continually struggle with a lump in my throat 
which I often think should remain with me forever, I dare claim 
that of all the necessitous qualities in life the spirit of play must 



246 DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY 

be the last to leave a race. Its translation to the gravities of living 
needs no bellows for the coaxing of the fire. It is ever burning 
upon the hearth of the happy heart. 

The gilded statuary of the bridge of Alexander III, like flaming 
beacons in the sun's rays, waved us out and on to the Invalides to 
see the weekly awarding of medals. It is presumably the gay 
event of the week as the band plays, and there is some color in the 
throngs who surge along the colonnades to look into the court of 
honor. A portion of the great space is now accommodating huge 
shattered cannon and air craft of the enemy, their massiveness 
suggesting, as the little glittering medals are pinned upon the sol- 
diers' breasts, that it is not so easy to be a hero and go a-capturing. 

By the judicious wavings of famous autographs we were per- 
mitted the upper balcony to sketch the heroic ones within the 
hollow square formed by soldiers and marines. Directly beneath 
us stood the band with the brassard of the red cross on their arms, 
for they are still the stretcher bearers at the front. In the center 
of the square was a little group of men, seventy perhaps but the 
space was vast. Some were standing, some seated with stiff stumps 
of legs sticking out queerly. Here and there a nurse stood by a 
blind man, and there were white oblong gaps in the line which 
designated the beds of the paralyzed. 

I had set my teeth and said that I must stand it when across the 
courtyard like a liquid stream of some spilled black portion came 
the mothers and the wives, who were to wear the ribbon their sol- 
diers had earned in exchange for their lives. Or should there be 
little sons or daughters they received this wondrous emblem of 
their fathers' sacrifice. We could see the concerted white lift of 
handkerchiefs to the eyes of the black line of women as the 
general bestowed the honors. But the little children were tranquil. 

With the beginning of the distribution the band, for which I had 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA— HALE 247 

longed that it might give a glow to the war, swung into a blare of 
triumph. It was the first note of music we had heard in France. 
And as we all expressed our emotion with abandonment throughout 
the enlivening strains of "The Washington Post," I appreciated 
the infinite wisdom of marching drumless through the streets — of 
the divine lack of the bugles' song. For music, no matter its 
theme, makes happy only those who are already happy. To 
those who suffer it urges an unloosening of their grief — and grief 
must not go abroad in France. 

There was an end to the drama. The guard of honor marched 
through the porte, banners flying. It was a happy ending, I sup- 
pose, though one might not think so by the triumphal chariots 
that entered the court to bear away the heroes — chariots with that 
red emblem emblazoned upon a white disc which would have mysti- 
fied an early Caesar. But my thoughts were not entirely with the 
chief actors in the play, rather with the squad of soldiers who had 
surrounded them, the supers who would have enjoyed medals, too, 
and upon whom opportunity had not smiled; whose epic of brave 
deeds may never be read, and who, by chance, may go legless yet 
ribbonless up the Champs Elysees. 

"They" were hopping up the Avenue when we crossed it again, 
yet we all went on about our daily tasks as one passes the blind 
man on the corner of Sixth Avenue and Thirty-third Street. He 
may receive a penny, a twang of the heart strings, but he must 
be passed to go into the shop. My list was in my purse bearing 
but a faint resemblance to the demands of other years. I thought 
as I took it out what confusion of mind would have been my por- 
tion had I found it in my purse three summers ago, in what state of 
madness could any one prepare for a day in Paris such a program 
as: "Gloves, Hospital 232, furs, workshop for blind, shell combs, 
see my baby at Orphelinat, hair nets, cigarettes to my soldier, try 



248 DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY 

on gowns, funeral of Am. airman," and on and on through each 
day's great accomplishment to the long quiet night. 

Yet to buy freely and even frivolously in France need harass 
nothing more soulful than a letter of credit, and it was with less of 
guilt than of fear that I entered the courtyard of my furrier. I 
turned the button ever so gently with the same dread in my heart 
that I had suffered in going back to all of my shop keepers of 
previous summers. Would he still be there? Two years is a 
long time, and he was a young man. But he was there, wounded 
in the chest but at work and in expectation of being recalled. He 
did not want to go back, but of course if he was needed — 

And I must lay stress on the magnificence of this hope that he 
might not have to return to the trenches. I have found many who 
do not want to go back. Fierce partizans of French courage deny 
this, reading in my contention a lack of bravery, but to me it is 
valor of a glorious color. For they do return without resentment, 
and, what is more difficult in this day of monumental deeds and 
minute bickerings, without criticism. 

Like most of the men who come out of the trenches he had very 
little to say about them. It amused him to hear that my new fur 
coat purchased in America is of so fleeting a dye that I must dart 
into the subway whenever the sun shines. He was laughing 
quietly as he wished me a cloudy winter upon my descending the 
broad stone steps into the empty, echoing courtyard. The un- 
expected appreciation of my doubtful humor set me musing over 
the possibility of a duty new to Americans. It is the French who 
have stood for gaiety. We have warmed ourselves in their quick 
wit. Perhaps since it is time for us to do our little clownish best 
to set them laughing. 

Having made the resolve I failed meanly to put it into execution. 
I knew I was going to fail as the motor stopped before the great 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA— HALE 249 

house in the rue Daru — the lordly house of exquisitely tinted walls 
although the colors are not seen by those who dwell within. There 
is a paved cour beyond the high wall with great steps leading up to 
the hotel. At the right are the stables, where delicate fabrics are 
woven — the workmen with heads erect; where are special looms 
for those who, by the sad demands of this war, are denied hands 
as well as their two eyes. At the left is another building and 
here the men play in a gymnasium, even fence with confidence. 
In an anteroom is a curious lay figure that the most sensitive of the 
students may learn massage — it is the blind in Japan who give 
their understanding fingers to this work — and in the rooms above 
is a printing press, silent for lack of funds, but ready to give a 
paper of his own to the sightless. Only, at "The Light House" 
they will not accept that a single one of their guests is without 
vision. "Ah guardienne," cried one of the students to the Amer- 
ican woman who has established our Light House methods over 
there, "you do not see the unevenness of this fabric for your eyes 
are in your way." 

I was standing in the room where the plan of the house is set 
upon a table. It is the soldier's first lesson that he may know 
the turns and steps, and run about without the pitiful outstretch- 
ing of arms. There were other callers upon the guardienne. A 
blind graduate who had learned to live (which means to work) 
had returned with his little old father, and both were telling her 
that he had enough orders for his sweaters from the "Trois Quar- 
tiers" to keep him occupied for two years. The family felt that 
he was established — so there was nothing more to fear. And then 
because we were all happy over it the old man and the woman and 
myself began to cry noiselessly. Only the blind boy remained 
smiling through the choking silence. 

I went to the window and glared down into the gardens where 



250 DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY 

other soldiers were studying at little tables with a professor for 
each, and I asked myself why, in this great exigency, I was not 
being funny and paying my debt to France. But there was noth- 
ing to be funny about. The thing that dried my tears was the 
recollection of the blind asylum of my youth, where the "inmates" 
never learned to walk without groping, where we were shown hid- 
eous bead furniture, too small for dolls, which was the result of 
their eager but misspent lives. 

There was a gown to be ordered before noon and as I drove 
back through the Faubourg St. Honore I found myself looking 
fondly, thirstily into the shop windows, lifting my free eyes to the 
charming vagaries of old buildings, and again I made a vow al- 
though it had nothing to do with humor. On my dressing table 
rests a cushion of brocade and I shall carry it about as one who 
may yield to temptation carries a pledge, for the card which is 
attached chants out to me whenever my eyes rest upon it : "Soldat 
Pierre. Aveugle de la guerre. Blesse a Verdun.'^ And as long 
as Soldier Pierre. Blind from the war. Wounded at Verdun 
can go on weaving his fabrics I pray that I may carry whatever 
burden may be mine with the unrebellious spirit. 

Ah well ! The robe took its place in the curriculum of my new 
Parisian day. It was to be a replica in color of that worn by the 
head of the house — her one of mourning was so bravely smart — 
for the business must go on and only the black badge of glory in 
fashionable form show itself in the gay salon. "Yes, we must go 
on," she said, "though every wife may give her mate. It is of an 
enormity to realize before one dies that he can be done without — 
that there are enough little ones to keep France alive and we women 
in the meantime can care for the country. Our men may die glad 
in that thought, but I think there must be a little of grief, too. It is 
sad not to be needed. Yes, madame, blue for you where mine is 



VNITED STATES OF AMERICA— HALE 251 

black, and in place of the crepe something very brilliant. It is 
only Americans that we can make gay now, and it keeps the women 
in the sewing room of good cheer to work in colors. Too dear you 
think? Ah, no, madame, observe the model!" 

Conscious that she had taken the basest advantage of my sym- 
pathy, and glad that she had done so I went on to dejeuner with a 
feeling that I had deserved it which I might not otherwise have 
enjoyed. We were lunching at the restaurant on the Seine which 
felt for a short time the upheaval of war. Among the first called 
to the front had been the proprietor, and the august deputies whose 
custom it was to take their midday meal at this famous eating place 
had suffered from an unevenness of the cuisine. He is back at his 
establishment now, an ammunition maker on the night shift and 
the excellent and watchful patron at noon. 

Our guests came promptly, for France still eats, although, if I 
can say anything so anomalous, does not stop to do so. The war 
talk continues albeit one carries it more lightly through a meal. A 
French officer arrived in the only automobile of his garage which 
the government had not commandeered. We looked down upon 
it stealthily that we might not give offense to his chauffeur, for 
the car is a Panhard in the last of its teens — which holds no 
terrors to a woman but is a gloomy age for a motor. An American 
architect from our Clearing House bowed over my hand a little 
more Gallic in these days than the Gaul himself. He has a right 
to the manners of the country. He had come over at the beginning 
of the war for a month and is determined to stick it out if he 
never builds another railway station. "To see the troops march 
through the Arc de Triomphe!" is the cry of the Americans, but the 
French do not express themselves so dramatically. 

There is drama enough, though, even in the filing of papers at 
every American relief society. That and the new sensation of 



252 DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY 

work serves to hold the dilettante of our country to his long task. 
"This is the president's office," you will be told in a hushed voice 
outside some stately door. Then one discovers in Mr. President a 
playmate of Mayfair or Monte Carlo or Taormina who may never 
previously have used a desk except as a support for the signing 
of checks. 

Our friend had been engaged that morning upon the re-ticketing 
of the Lafayette Kits which had come back from the front because 
there was no longer a Gaspard to receive them. I put this down 
that any young girl of our country who does not hear from "her 
soldier" may understand the silence. And sometimes the poilu 
is a little confused, writing a charming letter of thanks to "Mon- 
sieur Lafayette" himself. 

A man takes coffee at dejeuner but finishes his cigar en route 
to work. We were at the edge of Paris before the Illustrator had 
thrown his away. We were not in the car of ancient lineage but in 
that relic of other days a real automobile without the great whit© 
letters of the army upon its sides and bonnet. Yet we were going 
into the heart of the Army. We would not be among the derelicts 
of battle that afternoon but with men sound of mind and body, and 
the thought was grateful that there would be nothing to anguish 
over. We were to visit two cantonments, rough barracks, in one 
of which the men gathered after their "permission" for a re- 
equipment; while at the second one were those soldiers who had 
become separated from their regiments, and who were sent there 
until the companies — if they existed — could be found, and the 
"isolated" again despatched to the front. 

I had anticipated a very relieving afternoon. The sun shone, 
the long road led to open country, and many circling aeroplanes 
over an aviation field nearby gave the air of a fete. Only the 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA— HALE 253 

uniforms of the English and American women who are attached to 
each of these many cantonments suggested any necessitous com- 
bating of the grim reaper. 

Yet they are not nurses of the body but of the spirit. From 
modest little vine covered sheds erected in each ugly open space 
they disperse good cheer augmented by coffee and cigarettes (and 
such small comforts as we Americans send them) after the regula- 
tion army rations are served by the commissary. They hear the 
men's stories, comfort the unhappy ones, chaff the gloomy ones, 
and when they have a moment's breathing space write letters to such 
of those as have asked for a correspondent. 

One of these women — an American — was intent upon this occu- 
pation at the first canteen we visited. She admitted that she was 
tired but she must answer her letters. She was rather grave about 
it, "I write to sixty-eight," she said, "and I'll tell you why. At 
least I will tell you a little of it and you can read the rest. 
I was on night duty. There is always one of us here. The men 
have just come from visiting their homes and some of them are blue 
and cannot sleep. Rude to us? Oh, never! I had written letters 
almost all night and it was time to make the morning coffee, yet 
there was still one to do. I was tempted to put it aside. I didn't 
remember the man, but he had sent me a word of thanks. Well, 
somehow I did answer it between the moment of filling the caul- 
dron and getting ready for the day. Here is his reply — it came 
this morning — " 

Translating crudely from the letter I read aloud to our little 
circle: "Dear Madame, you have saved my life. I have no 
friends and no people left for I am from the invaded districts, so 
no one writes me. To-day I was on duty as the officer came into 
our trench with the mail. He called my name. He gave me 



254 DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY 

permission to leave the listening post to receive your valued letter. 
While at his side a shell tore up entirely my post. I thank you, 
Madame, that I am spared to fight for France — " 

I regarded her with longing. She had been the controller of a 
destiny. I suppose we are all that when we bend our best efforts, 
but seldom are we so definitely apprised of the reward of untiring 
duty. 

A petty officer passed by the shack with a paper in his hands. 
There were no sounding trumpets, but the men recognized the 
paper and rose from the ground where they had been lounging to 
hear him read the list of those who were to return immediately to 
the front. As the names were called each one summoned turned 
without comment or exclamation or expletive, picked up his kit 
dumped in a corner, slung on the heavy equipment, saw that the 
huge loaf of bread was secure — the extra shoes — refilled his can- 
teen and moved over to the barred gate. Occasionally one shook 
hands with a comrade and all saluted the women of the little 
flower-bedecked hut. An order was given and the gate was opened. 
They filed out into the dusty road on their march to the railway 
station. The gate was closed. A little hill rose higher than the 
ground of the barracks and we could see them once again — stout 
little men in patched uniforms — bending unresistingly under their 
burdens, the heavy steel helmets gleaming but faintly in the sun. 
Another detachment entered the barracks. 

It was coffee time now. The soldiers were lingering politely 
about with their tin cups in hand — not too expectantly, so as to 
assure the ladies that if by any chance there was no coffee they 
would not be disappointed. The gentlewoman in attendance had 
recently come from a canteen near the front where soup is made 
and often eight thousand bowls of it served in a day. The skin of 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA— HALE 255 

her arms and hands is, I fear, permanently unlovely from the 
steam of the great kettles — or perhaps I should say permanently 
lovely now that one knows the cause of the branding. I offered to 
pour in her place and she assented. 

The men came up to the little bar. I began to pour. I had 
thought I was about to do them a service. I knew with the first cup 
that it was they who were doing me one. All the unrest and misery 
of my idle if observing days in France was leaving me. I was 
pushing back the recollection with the sweetness of physical effort. 
I was at work. There is no living in France — or anywhere now — 
unless one is at work. I served and served and urged fresh cups 
upon them. They thought I was generous — I could not tell them 
that I had not known a happy instant till this coffee pouring time. 
I had not recognized that it was toiling with the hands that would 
bring a surcease to the beating of queries at my bewildered brain. 
There are no answers to this war. One can only labor for it and 
so, strangely, forget it. 

Late that afternoon I had a cup of tea in a ground floor room 
of a big Parisian hotel which has been freely assigned to an 
American woman for the least known of all our relief work. I 
had come that I might argue with her into giving up her long 
task for a brief rest. My contention was to have been that she 
could stop at any time as her work is never recognized. I found 
her doing up a parcel of excellent garments for a man and three 
women. They were to be assigned to the family of a respected 
painter of the Latin Quarter. They will never know who is the 
middleman, and it has chanced that she has dined in company with 
her day's donation. 

As I observed her tired tranquillity I felt my argument growing 
pointless. Whether it was coffee or the unacknowledged dispenser 



256 DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY 

of clothing to the uncrying needy it was service, and though my 
arm muscles ached I could understand that it is the idle boy in 
Paris which does not rest at night. 

And so I come to the last sheet of the romance which is serving 
so humbly my war-time needs. There is space for the dinner 
and the closing in of the gentle night thanks to the repeated, fervid 
declarations of the lovers on the other side the paper. We had 
been with the men that afternoon. We were among the officers 
that evening. We dined at one of the great restaurants which has 
timorously reopened its doors to find eager families ready to feast 
honored sons. At one table sat three generations, the father of 
the boy concealing his pride with a Gallic interest in the menu, but 
the grandfather futilely stabbed the snails as his gleaming old eyes 
kept at attention upon the be-medaled lad. Pretty women, too, 
were there, subdued in costuming but with that amiable acceptance 
of their position which is not to be found among the more eager 
"lost ones" of other countries. And I enjoyed some relief in their 
evidence once more, and some inward and scarcely to-be-expressed 
solace in the thought that those soldiers who henceforth must go 
disfigured through a fastidious world can ever buy companionship. 

There was a theater attached to the restaurant. Through the 
glass doors we could see an iridescence of scant costumes, but 
the audience was light, and we ourselves preferred, as a more 
satisfactory ending to our day, to walk quietly toward the Arc de 
Triomphe which is waiting, waiting for fresh glories. On the 
other side of this last sheet of paper my lovers had so walked to- 
gether. But upon looking over their passionate adventures I have 
discovered, at last, why the romance has never found a market. 
On one side and then on the other I have read and reread the two 
experiences. Yes, I find the love-story curiously lacking in love. 



N 



UNITED STATES^VNTERMEYER 257 



CHILDREN OF WAR 

OT for a transient victory, or some 

Stubborn belief that we alone are right; 
Not for a code or conquest do we fight, 

But for the crowded millions still to come. 

This, unborn generations, is your war. 

Although it is our blood that pays the price. 
Be worthy, children, of our sacrifice, 

And dare to make your lives worth fighting for. 

We give up all we love that you may loathe 
Intrigue and darkness, that you may disperse 
The ranks of ugly tyrannies and, worse. 

The sodden languor and complacent sloth. 



Do not betray us, then, but come to be 

Creation's crowning splendor, not its slave; 
Knowing our lives were spent to keep you brave, 

And that our deaths were meant to make you free. 

Courtesy Collier's Weekly. 



258 DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY 



KHAKI-BOY 

WHERE the torrent of Broadway leaps highest in folly and 
the nights are riddled with incandescent tire and chewing 
gum signs; jazz bands and musical comedies to the ticket specu- 
lators' tune of five dollars a seat, My Khaki-Boy, covered with 
the golden hoar of three hundred Metropolitan nights rose to the 
slightly off key grand finale of its eighty-first matinee, curtain 
slithering down to the rub-a-dud-dub of a score of pink satin 
drummer boys with slim ankles and curls; a Military Sextette of 
the most blooded of Broadway ponies; a back ground of purple 
eye-lidded privates enlisted from the ranks of Forty-Second Street; 
a three hundred and fifty dollar a week satorial sergeant in khaki 
and spotlight, embracing a ninety pound ingenue in rhinestone 
shoulder-straps. The tired business man and his lady friend, the 
Bronx and his wife, Adelia Ohio, Dead heads, Bald heads. Sore 
heads, Suburbanites, Sybarites; the poor dear public making exit 
sadder than wiser. 

On the unpainted side of the down slithering curtain, a canvas 
mountain-side was already rumbling rearward on castors. An 
overhead of foliage jerked suddenly higher, revealed a vista of 
brick wall. A soldiers' encampment, tents and all, rolled up like 
a window shade. The ninety pound ingenue, withholding her 
silver-lace flouncings from the raw edges of moving landscape, 
high-stepped to a rearward dressing room; the khaki clad hero 
brushing past her and the pink satin drummer boys for first place 
down a spiral staircase. 

Miss Blossom De Voe, pinkest of satin drummer boys, withdrew 
an affronted elbow, the comers of her mouth quivering slightly, 



VISITED STATES OF AMERICA— HURST 259 

possibly of their own richness. They were dewy, fruit-like lips, 
as if Nature were smiling with them at her own handiwork. 

"Say, somebody around here better look where he's going or 
mama's khaki-boy will be calling for an arnica high-ball. What 
does he think I yam, the six o'clock subway rush?" 

Miss Elaine Vavasour wound down the spiral ahead of Miss 
De Voe, the pink satin blouse already in the removing. 

"Go suck a quince. Bios. It's good for crazy bone and fallen 
arch." 

"If you was any funnier, Elaine, you'd float," said Miss De Voe 
withdrawing a hair pin as she wound downward, an immediate 
avalanche of springy curls released. 

Beneath the stage of the Gotham Theater a corridor of dressing 
rooms ran the musty subterranean length of the sub cellar. A 
gaseous gloomy dampness here; this cave of the purple lidded, so 
far below the level of reality. 

At the door of Miss De Voe's eight by ten, shared by four, 
dressing room, one of the back drop of privates, erect, square- 
backed, head thrown up by the deep-dipping cap vizor, emerged at 
sight of her, lifted hat revealing a great permanent wave of hair 
that could only be born not bought. 

"H'lo, Hal." 

"Hello, Blossum." 

"Whose hot water bottle did you come to borrow?" 

"Hot water bottle?" 

"Yeh, you look like you got the double pneumonia and each 
one of th€ pneumonia's got the tooth ache. Who stole your kite, 
ikkie boy?" 

Mr. Hal Sanderson flung up a fine impatient head, the perma- 
nent hair-wave lifting, 

"We'll can the comedy, Blossum," he said. 



260 DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY 

She lowered to a mock curtesy, mouth skewed to control 
laughter, arms akimbo. 

"We will now sing psalm twenty-three." 

"Come to supper with me, Bloss? You been dodging me pretty 
steady here lately." 

She clapped her hand to her brow, plastering a curl there. 

"Migaw, I am now in the act of dropping thirty cents and ten 
cents tip into my Pig Bank. Will I go to supper with him? Say, 
darling, will the Hudson flow by Grant's monument to-night at 
twelve? On a Saturday matinee he asks me to supper with a 
question mark." 

"Honest, Bloss, you'd hand a fellow a ha ha if he invited you 
to his funeral." 

She sobered at that, leaning against the cold, plastered wall, 
winding one of the shining curls about her fore finger. 

"What's the matter— Hal?" 

He handed her a torn newspaper sheet, blue penciled. 

She took it but did not glance down. 

"Drafted?" 

"Yes," he said. 

The voice of a soubrette trilling snatches of her topical song 
as she creamed off her make-up, came to them through the 
sulky gloom of the corridor. Behind the closed door of Miss De 
Voe's dressing room, the gabble of the pink satin ponies was like 
hash in the chopping. Overhead, moving scenery created a remote 
sort of thunder. She stood looking up at him, her young mouth 
parted. 

"I — oh, Hal — ^well — well, whatta you know about that — Hal 
Sanderson — drafted." 

He stepped closer, the pallor coming out stronger in his face, 
enclosed her wrist, pressing it. 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA— HURST 261 

"Grover's drafted too." 

"Grover— too?" 

"He's three thousand and one. Ten numbers before me." 

Her irises were growing, blackening. 

"Well, whatta you know about that? Grover White, the world's 
dancing tenor, and Hal Sanderson the world dancing tenor's under- 
study, drafted! The little tin soldiers are covered with rust, 
and Uncle Sam is going to — " 

"Hurry, Bloss, get into your duds. I want to talk. Hurry. 
We'll eat over at Ramy's." 

She turned but flung out an arm, grasping now his wrist. 

"I — oh, Hal — I — I just never was so — so sad and so — so glad!" 

The door opened to a slit enclosing her. In his imitation uni- 
form, hand on empty cartridge belt, Mr. Hal Sanderson stood there 
a moment, his face whitening, tightening. 

In Ramy's glorified basement,' situated in one of the Forties 
which flow like tributaries into the heady waters of Broadway, one 
may dine from soup to nuts, raisins and regrets for one hour and 
sixty cents. In Ramy's, courses may come and courses may go, 
but the initiated one holds on to his fork forever. Here red wine 
flows like water, being ninety-nine per cent., just that. 

Across a water tumbler of ruby contents. Miss Blossom De Voe, 
the turbulent curls all piled up beneath a slightly dusty but highly 
eff'ective amethyst velvet hat, regarded Mr. Sanderson, her perfect 
lips trembling as it were, against an actual nausea of the spirit 
which seemed to pull at them. 

"Whadda you putting things up to me for, Hal? You're old 
enough to know your own business." 

Blue shaved, too correct in one of Broadway's black and white 
checked Campus Suits, his face as cleanly chisled and thrust for- 



262 DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY 

ward as a Discobolus, Mr. Sanderson patted an open letter spread 
out on the table cloth between them, his voice rising carefully 
above the din of diners. 

"There's fellows claiming exemption every hour of the day 
that ain't got this much to show, Bloss. I was just wise enough to 
see these things and get ready for 'em." 

"You ain't your mother's sole support. What about them 
snapshots of the two farms of hers out in Ohio you gave me?" 

"But I got to be in this country to take charge of her affairs for 
her — my mother's old, honey — ain't I the one to manage for her? 
Only child and all that. Honest, Bloss, you need a brick house." 

"Well, that old man lawyer that wrote that letter has been 
doing it all the time, why all of a sudden should you — " 

He cast his eyes ceilingward, flopping his hands down loosely 
to the table in an attitude of mock exhaustion. 

"Oh, Lord, Bloss, lemme whistle it, maybe you can catch on 
then. Brains, honey, little Hal's brains is what got that letter 
there written. I seen this coming from the minute conscription 
was in the air. Little Hal seen it coming, and got out his little 
hatchet. Try to prove that I ain't the sole one to take charge of 
my mother's affairs. Try to prove it. That's what I been fixing 
for myself these two months, try to — " 

"Sh-h-h-h, Charley—" 

"Brains is what done it, — every little thing of my mother's is in 
my care. I fixed it. Now little Blossy-blossum will you be 
good?" 

He regarded her with cocked head and face receptive for her 
approval. "Now will you be good!" 

She sat loosely, meeting his gaze, but her face as relaxed as her 
attitude. A wintry stare had set in. 

"Oh," she said, "I see." And turned away her head. 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA— HURST 263 

He reached closer across the table, regardless of the conglom- 
erate diners about, felt for her hand which lay limp and cold 
beside her plate, and which she withdrew. 

"Darling," he said, straining for her gaze. 

"Don't, Hal." 

"Darling, don't you see? It's fate knocking at our door. 
There's not a chance Grover can get exemption. He ain't even 
got a fifth cousin or a flat-foot!" 

"Maybe he could claim exemption on dandruff." 

"I'm serious, honey. It's going to be one of those cases where 
an understudy wakes up to find himself famous. I can't fail if 
I get this chance, Bloss. It's the moment I been drudging for, 
for five solid years. I never was in such voice as now, I never 
was so fit. Not an ounce of fat. Not a song in the part I don't 
know backwards. I tell you it's the hand of fate, Bloss, giving 
us a hand-out. I can afford now, darling, to make good with 
you. On three fifty a week I can ask a little queen like you to 
double up with me. From thirty-five to three fifty! I tell you 
honey, we're made. I'm going to dress my little dolly in cloth 
of gold and silver fox. I'm going to perch her in the suite de 
luxe of the swellest hotel in town. I'm — " 

She pushed back from the table, turning more broadly from 
him. 

"Don't," she said pressing her kerchief against her lips. 

He sat back, the rims of his eyes widening. 

"Why — why what's the matter, Bloss? Why — why, what's the 
matter?" 

"Don't talk to me for a minute," she said, still in profile; "I'll be 
all right, only don't talk." 

"Why, Bloss, you — sick?" 

She shook her head. "No. No." 



264 DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY 

"You ain't getting cold feet now that we got the thing before 
us — in our hand?" 

"I dunno. I dunno. I — don't want nothing. That's all, noth- 
ing but to be left alone." 

He sucked his lips inward, biting at them. 

"Don't — don't think I ain't noticed, Bloss, that you — you ain't 
been the same — that you been different — for weeks. Sometimes 
I think maybe you're going cold on — on this long engagement stuff. 
That's why this thing is breaking just right for us, honey. I 
felt you slippin' a little. I'm ready now. Peaches, we can't 
go taxi-cabbing down for that license none too soon to suit 
me." 

She shook her head, beating softly with one small fist into her 
other palm. 

"No, Hal," she said, her mouth tightening and drawing down. 

"Why— why, Bloss!" 

Suddenly she faced him, her hands both fists now, and coming 
down with a force that shivered the china. 

"You — you ain't a man, you ain't. You ain't a man, you — 
you're a slacker! You're a slacker, that's what you are, and 
Gawd, how I — how I hate a slacker!" 

"Bloss — why, girl — you — you're era — " 

"Oh, I've known it. Deep down inside of me I've known it since 
the day we found ourselves in the mess of this war. I knew it, 
and all these months kept kidding myself that maybe — you — 
wasn't." 

"You—" 

"Thought maybe when you'd read the newspapers enough and 
heard the khaki-boys on the street corners enough, and listened to 
— to your country pleading enough that — that you'd rise up to 
show you was a man. I knew all these months down inside of me 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA— HURST 265 

that you was a slacker, but I kept hopin'. Gawd, how I kept 
hopin'." 

"You — you can't talk to me that way! You're — " 

"Can't I! Ha! Anybody can talk any old way to a slacker 
he wants to and then not say enough. You ain't got no guts you — 
you're yellow, that's what you are, you — " 

"Blossum!" 

"You, sneaking up to me with trumped up exemption stuff" when 
your country's talking her great heart out of her for men to stand 
by 'er! Gawd! If I was a man — if I was a man she wouldn't 
have to ask me twice, but before I went marching off I'd take time 
off to help the street cleaning department wipe up a few streets 
with the slackers I found loafing around under a government they 
were afraid to fight for. I'd show 'em. I'd show 'em if a gov- 
ernment is good enough to live under it's good enough to fight 
under. I'd show 'em." 

"If you was a man, Blossum, you'd eat those words. By God, 
you'd eat 'em. I'm no coward — I — " 

"I know you're not, Hal — that's why I — I — " 

"I got the right to decide for myself if I want to Hght when I 
don't know what I'm fighting for. This ain't my war, this ain't 
America's war. Before I fight in it I want a dam sight to know 
what I'm fighting for, and not all the street corner rah rah stuff 
has told me yet. I ain't a bull to go crazy with a lot of red waved 
in my face. I've got no blood to spill in the other fellow's battle. 
I'm—" 

"No, but you— " 

"I'm at a point in my life that I've worked like a dog to reach. 
Let the fellows that love the hero stuff give up their arms and their 
legs and the breath that's in them for something they don't know 
the meaning of. Because some big-gun of a Emperor out in Aus- 



266 DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY 

tria was assassinated, I ain't going to bleed to death for it. It's us 
poor devils that get the least out of the government that right away 
are called on to give the most, it's us — " 

"Hal, ain't — ain't you ashamed!" 

"No. I ain't ashamed and I ain't afraid. You know it ain't 
because I'm afraid. I've licked more fellows in my time than 
most fellows can boast. I — I got the Fifty-fifth Street fire rescue 
medal to my credit if anybody should ask you. I — I — ask any- 
body from my town if any kid in it ever licked me. But I ain't 
going to fight when I ain't got a grudge against no man. Call that 
being a coward if you like, but then you and me don't speak the 
same language." 

Her silence seemed to give off an icy vapor. 

"That's what they all say," she said. "It's like hiding behind 
a petticoat, hiding behind a defense like that. Sure you ain't got 
a grudge. Maybe you don't know what it's all about — God knows 
who does. Nobody can deny that. There ain't nothing reason- 
able about war, if there was there wouldn't be none. That talk 
don't get you nowheres. The proposition is that we're at war, 
whatever you or anybody else may think of it." 

"That's just it — we didn't have no say-so." 

"Just the same, Hal Sanderson, this great big grand country, 
of ours is at war, and needs you. It ain't what you think any more 
that counts. Before we was in war you could talk all you wanted, 
but now that we're in, there's only one thing to do, only one, and 
not all your fine talk about peace can change it. One thing to 
do. Fight!" 

"No government can make me — " 

"If you want peace now it's up to you to help make it, a new 
peace and a grander peace, not go baying to the moon after a peace 
that ain't no more." 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA— HURST 267 

"You better get a soap box. If this is the way you got of trying 
to get out of something you're sorry for, I'll let you off easier — 
you don't need to tiy to — " 

She regarded him with her lips quivering, a quick layer of tears 
forming, trembling and venturing to the edge of her lashes. 

"Hal — Hal — a — a fellow that I've banked on like I have you! 
It ain't that — you know it ain't. I could have waited for ten times 
this long. It's only I — I'm ashamed, Hal. Ashamed. There 
ain't been a single gap in the chorus from one of the men enlisting 
that my heart ain't just dropped in my shoes like dough. I never 
envied a girl in my life the way I did Elaine Vavasour when she 
stood on the curb at the Battery the other day crying and watching 
Charlie Kirkpatrick go marching off. Charlie was a pacifist, too, 
as long as the country was out of war, and there was something to 
argue about. The minute the question was settled, he shut up, 
buckled on his belt and went! That's the kind of a pacifist to be. 
The kind of fellow that when he sees peace slipping, buckles on and 
starts out for a new peace; a realer peace. That's the kind of a 
fellow I thought you — you — " 

Her voice broke then abruptly, in a rain of tears, and she raised 
the crook of her arm to her face with the gesture of a child. "That 
— that's the kind of a fellow I — I — " 

His cigarette discarded and curling up in a little column of 
smoke between them, he sat regarding her, a heavy surge of red 
rising above the impeccable white of his collar into the roots of 
his hair. It was as if her denouncement had come down in a welt 
across his face. 

"Nobody ever — nobody ever dared to talk like this to me 
before. Nobody ever dared to call me a coward. Nobody. Be- 
cause it ain't so!" 

"I know it ain't, Hal. If it was could I have been so strong for 



268 DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY 

you all these months? I knew the way you showed yourself in 
the Fifty-fifth Street fire. I read about it in the papers before I 
ever knew you. I — I know the way you mauled Ed Stein, twice 
your size, the night he tried to — to get fresh with me. I know you 
ain't a slacker in your heart, Hal, but I — I couldn't marry a man 
that got fake exemption. Couldn't, no matter how it broke my 
heart to see him go marching off ! Couldn't! Couldn't!" 

"That's what it means, Blossum — marching off!" 

"I know it, but how — how could I marry a man that wasn't fit 
to wear his country's uniform even in a show. I — I couldn't marry 
a man like that if it meant the solid gold suite in the solid goldest 
hotel in this town. I couldn't marry a — a fake khaki-boy!" 

"Ain't there no limit, Bloss, to the way you can make a fellow 
feel like dirt under your feet? My God! ain't there no limit?" 

"There — there's nothing on earth can make a man of you, Hal, 
nothing on God's earth but War! Every once in a while there's 
some little reason seems to spring up for there bein' a war. You're 
one of them reasons, Hal. Down in my heart I know it that you'll 
come back, and when I get a hunch it's a hunch! Down in my 
heart I know it, dear, tliat you'll come back to me. But you'll 
come back a man, you'll come back with the yellow streak pure 
gold, you'll — you'll come back to me pure gold, dear. I know it. 
I know it." 

His head was back as if his throat were open to the stroke of her 
words, but there was that growing in his face which was enormous, 
translucent, even apogean. 

He tore up the paper between them, slowly, and in criss crosses. 

"And you, Blossum?" he said, not taking his eyes, with their 
growing lights, off her. 

"Why, I'll be waiting, Hal," she said, the pink coming out to 
flood her face, "I'll be waiting — Sweetheart." 



THE MARRIED SLACKER 




She (reading) — "At 5:15, the barrage was raised, and the Americans advanced to 
attack. The long line moved forward like the steady on-sweep of the tide — unwaver- 
ing, irresistible, implacable." Oh, isn't it perfectly wonderful! I knew our men 
would fight gloriously! And just listen to this: 




She (reading) — " The Germans fought desperately but the American lines never 
wavered in their onward course. Sometimes the broad stretch of the battlefield was 
enveloped in great volumes of smoke, but a moment later, as the air cleared, the 
same lines were to be seen moving onward. At 6:45, the sound of cheering was 
heard amidst the din of the battle and a few moments later, the message was sent 
back that the American troops had captured the great German position." 




She (reading) — " The American victory of yesterday may well mark the beginning 
of the end of the war. London and Paris are ringing with the praises of the Ameri- 
can soldiers. President Wilson has proclaimed a national holiday in celebration of the 
triumph, and the American soldier has won imperishable glory as a fighting man." 



VISITED STATES OF AMERICA— JOHNSON 269 
HYMN FOR AMERICA 

Air: "Scots wha hae ivi' Wallace bled" 

W HERE'S the man, in all the earth- 
Man of want or man of worth — 
Who shall now to rank or birth 

Knee of homage bend? 
Though he war with chance or fate, 
If his heart be free of hate, 
If his soul with love be great, 

He shall be our friend. 

Where's the man, of wealth or wage, 
Dare be traitor to his age, 
To the people's heritage 

Won by war and woe, — 
Counting but as private good 
All the gain of brotherhood 
By the base so long withstood? 

He shall be our foe. 

Where's the man that does not feel 
Freedom as the common weal. 
Duty's sword the only steel 

Can the battle end? 
Comrades, chant in unison 
Creed the noblest 'neath the sun: 
"One for all and all for one," 

Till each foe be friend. 



^^J5S*pT' ?CkA»^««<<»«iC /^e^SLggK 



270 DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY 

THE BREAKING OUT OF THE FLAGS 

IT is April, 
And the snow lingers on the dark sides of evergreens; 
The grass is brown and soggy 
With only a faint, occasional overwash of green. 
But under the leafless branches 

The white bells of snowdrops are nodding and shaking 
Above their green sheaths. 
Snow, fir-trees, snowdrops — stem and flower — 
Nature off"ers us only white and green 
At this so early springtime. 
But man gives more. 

Man has unfurled a Nation's flags 

Above the city streets; 

He has flung a striped and starry symbol of bright colors 

Down every curving way. 

Blossoms of War, 

Blossoms of Suff"ering, 

Strange beautiful flowers of the New Year: 

Flags! 

Over door lintels and cornices, 

Above peaked gables and flat mansard-roofs 

Flutter the flags. 

The avenues are arcaded with them, 

The narrow alleys are pleached with stripes and stars. 

For War is declared, 

And the people gird themselves 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA— LOWELL 271 

Silently — sternly — 

Only the flags make arabesques in the sunshine, 

Twining the red of blood and the silver of achievement 

Into a gay, waving pattern 

Over the awful, unflinching Destiny 

Of War. 

The flags ripple and jar 

To the tramp of marching men. 

To the rumble of caissons over cobblestones. 

From seaboard to seaboard 

And beyond, across the green waves of the sea, 

They flap and fly. 

Men plant potatoes and click typewriters 

In the shadow of them. 

And khaki-clad soldiers 

Lift their eyes to the garish red and blue 

And turn back to their khaki tasks 

Refreshed. 

America, 

The clock strikes. 

The spring is upon us, 

The seed of our forefathers 

Quickens again in the soil, 

And these flags are the small, early flowers 

Of the solstice of our Hope! 

Thru suff"ering to Peace! 
Thru sacrifice to Security! 
Red stripes, 



272 DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY 

Turn us not from our purpose, 
Lead us up as by a ladder 
To the deep blue quiet 
Wherein are shining 
The silver stars. 

Soldiers, sailors, clerks, and office boys. 

Men, and Women — but not children, 

No! Not children! 

Let these march 

With their paper caps and toy rifles 

And feel only the panoply of War — 

But the others, 

Welded and forged, 

Seared, melted, broken. 

Molded without flaw. 

Slowly, faithfully pursuing a Purpose, 

A Purpose of Peace, 

Even into the very flame of Death. 

Over the city, 

Over all the cities. 

Flutter flags. 

Flags of spring. 

Flags of burgeoning. 

Flags of fulfilment. 



mmXl^ W •'•-^ ^>C O i-*^ *0^i^0^ • 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA— MRS. LANE 273 

OUR DAY 

London, April 20, 1917 

IT was the evening of our Day; that young April day when in the 
solemn vastnesses of St. Paul's were held the services to mark 
America's historic entrance into the Great World War. Across 
the mighty arch of the Chancel on either side hung the Stars and 
Stripes and the Union Jack. 

From the organ pealed those American songs to which half a 
century ago, in another war for Freedom, men marched to battle, 
and, even if by ways of defeat and death, to ultimate Victory. 
How many there were that April day for whom the sight of the 
Stars and Stripes was blurred with tears. How the familiar airs 
and simple words pained us with the memory of our distant homes. 
Perhaps for the first time we understood the solemn significance of 
this dedication to war of what we hardly knew was so unspeakably 
dear. 

In the Crypt of St. Paul's, Mausoleum of England's greatest 
soldier and sailor heroes, their ashes rest who once fought and 
conquered. If it is given to those who have gone before to hear 
our human appeal, perhaps the immortal spirits of Nelson, of Wel- 
lington, of Kitchener, whose tragic fate is its unfulfilled destiny, 
may have rested like an inspiration on that kindred nation offering 
the sacrifice of all it holds most sacred to the cause of Divine 
Justice. 

After the solemn benediction thousands streamed slowly out to 
mingle with the multitudes gathered before the great Entrance 
where Queen Anne in crown and scepter keeps majestic guard, 
and where in peaceful days doves flit and flutter down to peck at 
the grain strewn about her royal feet. 



274 DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY 

Stem and momentous times have passed over that old, gray 
Cathedral; times of a Nation's grief and a Nation's rejoicing. But 
of all such days, in its centuries of existence, none has been so 
momentous for the destiny of the Empire as that sunny April day. 
And yet — and yet — perhaps more touching, more solemn, even 
than the High Service at St. Paul's, that which stirred Americans 
even more who love England with only a lesser love, and made us 
realize as never before what America stands for, joint defender 
now of the new Civilization, was the silent symbol of her dedication 
to the Cause of Human Freedom, for all London to see and on 
which, seeing, to reflect. It was the symbol of that for which 
Statesmen who were also prophets, have lived and toiled. 

It rose against the glowing West, never to be forgotten by those 
who saw it at the close of Our Day, for it marked the new Epoch. 

Now at last "Let the dead Past bury its Dead." 

Along Whitehall, down Parliament Street, and where towards 
the left Westminster Bridge spans its immortal river, stand the 
Houses of Parliament, their delicate tracery of stonework etched 
against the sunset sky. 

Hurrying crowds, released from the day's toil, stopped here, as 
if by a common impulse, to gaze upwards, and, gazing in silent 
wonder, they saw such a sight as London has never seen before. 
On the highest pinnacle of the Victoria tower where the flag of 
another nation has never before shared its proud eminence there 
floated together from one flagstaff" Old Glory and the Union Jack. 

That was America's supreme consecration. 



(Mrs. John Lane) 




WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS 

From the Original Painting by W. Orlando Rouland 



VISITED STATES— McCUTCHEON 275 

POUR LA PATRIE 

THEY were brothers, Louis and Frangois, standing in the pres- 
ence of the Prussian commander, looking hopelessly into his 
cold, unsmiling eyes. For the third time in as many days he was 
bargaining with them for that which God had given them and they 
in turn had promised to France : their lives. 

"Do not make the mistake of thinking that we exalt you for what 
you may call courage, or that your country will sing your praises," 
said the general harshly. "Your country will never know how or 
when you die. You have nothing to gain by dying, not even the 
credit of dying." 

Frangois allowed his hot, dry eyes to sweep slowly around the 
group. He was pale, his forehead wet. 

"You are soldiers," said he, his voice low and steady. "Is 
there one among you who would do the thing we are asked to do? 
If there is one man here who will stand forth in the presence of his 
comrades and say that he would betray Germany as you are asking 
us to betray France, — if there is such a man among you, let him 
speak, and then, — then will I do what you ask of me." 

A dozen pairs of hard implacable eyes returned his challenge. 
No man spoke. No man smiled. 

"You do not even pretend," cried the little poilu. "Well, I too 
am a soldier. I am a soldier of France. It is nothing to me that 
I die to-day or to-morrow, or that my country knows when or how. 
Take me out and shoot me," he shouted, facing the commander. 
"I am but one poor soldier. I am one of millions. What is my 
little life worth to you?" 

"Nothing," said the commander. "Ten such as you would not 
represent the worth of one German soldier." 



276 DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY 

"We say not so over there," said Frangois boldly, jerking his 
thumb in the direction of Pont-a-mousson. 

And now for the first time the Prussians about him smiled. 

"What is it, pray, that you do say over there?" inquired the 
general mockingly. 

"That the worst of the Frenchmen is worth five of your best," 
said Frangois, unafraid. Why should he be afraid to speak the 
truth? He was going to die. 

"And one of your frog-eating generals is the equal of five of 
me, I suppose?" The commander's grim face relaxed into a 
smile. "That is good! Ha-ha! That is good!" 

"So we say, excellency," said Frangois simply. "Our Papa 
Joffre — ah, he is greater than all of you put in one." 

The Prussian flushed. His piggish eyes glittered. 

"Your Papa Joffre!" he scoffed. 

"He is greater than the Kaiser, — though I die for saying it," 
cried the little poilu recklessly. 

The commander turned his eyes from the white, impassioned 
face of Frangois and looked upon the quivering, ghastly visage of 
the brother who stood beside him. The fire that glowed in the 
eyes of Frangois was missing in those of Louis. 

The grizzled Prussian smiled, but imperceptibly. What he saw 
pleased him. Louis, the big one, the older of the two, trembled. 
It was only by the supremest effort that he maintained a pitiable 
show of defiance. His face was haggard and blanched with fear; 
there was a hunted, shifty look in his narrowed eyes. The gen- 
eral's smile developed. It proffered comfort, consolation, en- 
couragement. 

"And you," he said, almost gently, "have not you profited by the 
reflections of your three days of grace? Are you as stubborn as 



UNITED STATES— McCUTCHEON 277 

this mule of a brother, this foolish lad who spouts even poorer 
French than I address to you?" 

Frangois shot a quick, appealing glance at his big brother's face. 
There were tiny rivulets of slaver at the comers of Louis's mouth. 

"Louis!" he cried out sharply. 

Louis lifted his sagging shoulders. "I have nothing to say," 
he said thickly, and with the set of his jaws Frangois breathed 
deeply of relief. 

"So!" said the general, shrugging his shoulders. "I am sorry. 
You are young to die, you two. To die on the field of battle, — 
ah, that is noble! To die with one's back to a wall, blindfolded, 
and to be covered with earth so loosely that starving dogs may 
scratch away to feast — But, no more. You have decided. You 
have had many hours in which to consider the alternative. You 
will be shot at daybreak." 

The slight figure of Frangois straightened, his chin went up. 
His thin, dirt-covered hands were tightly clenched. 

"For France!" he murmured, lifting his eyes above the head of 
the Prussian. 

A vast shudder swept over the figure of Louis, a hoarse gasp 
broke through his lips. The commander leaned forward, fixing 
him with compelling eyes. 

"For France!" cried Frangois again, and once more Louis lifted 
his head to quaver: 

"For France!" 

"Take them away," said the commander. "But stay! How 
old are you?" He addressed Frangois. 

"I am nineteen." 

"And you?" 

Louis's lips moved but no sound issued. 



A 



278 DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY 

"My brother is twenty-one," said Frangois, staring hard at Louis. 

"He has a sweetheart who will grieve bitterly if he does not re- 
turn for her caresses, eh? I thought so. Oh, you French! But 
she will soon recover. She will find another, — like that! So!" 
He snapped his fingers. "She will not wait long, my good Louis. 
Take them away!" 

Louis's face was livid. His chin trembled, his lips fell apart 
slackly; he lowered his eyes after an instant's contact with the 
staunch gaze of his brother. 

"You have until sunrise to change your minds," said the Prus- 
sian, turning on his heel. 

"Sunrise," muttered Louis, his head twitching. 

They were led from the walled-in garden and across the cobble- 
stones of the little street that terminated in a cul de sac just above. 
Over the way stood the shattered remnants of a building that once 
had been pointed to with pride by the simple villagers as the finest 
shop in town. The day was hot. Woni-out German troopers 
sprawled in the shade of the walls, sound asleep, their mouths ajar, 
— beardless boys, most of them. 

"Poor devils," said Frangois, as he passed among them. He 
too was very young. 

They were shoved through the wrecked doorway into the mortar- 
strewn ruin, and, stumbling over masses of debris, came to the stone 
steps that led to the cellar below. Louis drew back with a grran. 
He had spent centuries in that foul pit. 

"Not there — again!" he moaned. He was whimpering feebly 
as he picked himself up at the bottom of the steps a moment later. 

"Dogs!" cried Frangois, glaring upward and shaking his fist at 
the heads projecting into the turquoise aperture above. Far on 
high, where the roof had been, gleamed the brilliant sky. "Our 
general will make you pay one of these days, — our great general!" 



UNITED STATES— McCUTCHEON 279 

Then he threw his arms about his brother's shoulders and — cried 
a little too, — not in fear but in sympathy. 

The trap door dropped into place, a heavy object fell upon it 
with a thud, and they were in inky darkness. There was no 
sound save the sobs of the two boys, and later the steady tread of 
a man who paced the floor overhead, — a man who carried a gun. 

They had not seen, but they knew that a dead man lay over in 
the corner near a window chocked by a hundred tons of brick and 
mortar. He had died some time during the second century of their 
joint occupancy of the black and musty hole. On the 28th he had 
come in with them, wounded. It was now the 31st, and he was 
dead, having lived to the age of nine score years and ten! When 
they spoke to their guards at the beginning of the third century, 
saying that their companion was dead and should be carried away, 
the Germans replied: 

"There is time enough for that," and laughed, — for the Germans 
could count the time by hours out there in the sunshine. But that 
is not why they laughed. 

A hidden French battery in the wooded, rocky hills off to the 
west had for days kept up a deadly, unerring fire upon the German 
positions. Shift as he would, the commander could not escape 
the shells from those unseen, undiscovered guns. They followed 
him with uncanny precision. His own batteries had searched in 
vain, with thousands of shrieking shells, for the gadfly gunners. 
They could find him, but he could not find them. For every shell 
he wasted, they returned one that counted. 

Three French scouts fell into his hands on the night of the 28th. 
Two of them were still alive. He had them up before him at once. 

"On one condition will I spare your lives," said he. And that 
condition had been pounded into their ears with unceasing vio- 
lence, day and night, by officers high and low, since the hour of 



280 DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY 

their capture. It was a very simple condition, declared the Ger- 
mans. Only a stubborn fool would fail to take advantage of the 
opportunity offered. The exact position of that mysterious bat- 
tery, — that was all the general demanded in return for his good- 
ness in sparing their lives. He asked no more of them than a few, 
truthful words. 

They had steadfastly refused to betray their countrymen. 

FranQois could not see his brother, but now and then he put out 
a timid hand to touch the shaking figure. He could not under- 
stand. Why was it not the other way about? Who was he to 
oflfer consolation to the big and strong? 

"Courage," he would say, and then stare hard ahead into the 
blackness. "You are great and strong," he would add. "It is I 
who am weak and little, Louis. I am the little brother." 

"You have not so much to live for as I," Louis would mutter, 
over and over again. 

Their hour drew near. "Eat this," persuaded Frangois, press- 
ing upon Louis the hunk of bread their captors had tossed down to 
them. 

"Eat? God! How can I eat?" 

"Then drink. It is not cold, but — " 

"Let me alone! Keep away from me ! God in heaven, why da 
they leave that Jean Picard down here with us — " 

"You have seen hundreds of dead men, Louis. All of them 
were heroes. All of them were brave. It was glorious to die as 
they died. Why should we be afraid of death?" 

"But they died like men, not like rats. They died smiling. 
They had no time to think." 

And then he fell to moaning. His teeth rattled. He turned 
upon his face and for many minutes beat upon the stone steps with 
his clenched hands, choking out appeals to his Maker. 



UNITED STATES— McCUTCHEON 281 

Frangois stood. His hot, unblinking eyes tried to pierce the 
darkness. Tears of shame and pity for this big brother burnt 
their way out and ran down his cheeks. He was wondering. He 
was striving to put away the horrid doubt that was searing his soul: 
the doubt of Louis! 

The dreary age wore on. Louis slept! The little brother sat 
with his chin in his hands, his heart cold, his eyes closed. He 
prayed. 

Then came the sound of a heavy object being dragged away 
from the door at the top of the steps. They both sprang to their 
feet. An oblong patch of drab, gray light appeared overhead. 
Sunrise! 

"Come! It is time," called down a hoarse voice. Three guns 
hung over the edge of the opening. They were taking no chances. 

"Louis!" cried Frangois sharply. 

Louis straightened his gaunt figure. The light from above fell 
upon his face. It was white, — deathly white, — ^but transfigured. 
A great light flamed in his eyes. 

"Have no fear, little brother," he said gently, caressingly. He 
clasped his brother's hand. "We die together. I have dreamed. 
A vision came to me, — came down from heaven. My dream was 
of our mother. She came to me and spoke. So! I shall die 
without fear. Come! Courage, little Frangois. We are her 
soldier boys. She gave us to France. She spoke to me. I am 
not afraid." 

Glorified, rejoicing, almost unbelieving, Frangois followed his 
brother up the steps. There was comfort in the grip of Louis's 
hand. 

"This general of yours," began Louis, facing the guard, a sneer 
on his colorless lips, his teeth showing, "he is a dog! I shall say 
as much to him when the guns are pointed at my breast." 



282 DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY 

The Germans stared. 

"What has come over this one?" growled one of them. "Last 
night he was breaking." 

"There is still a way to break him," said another, grinning. 
"Hell will be a relief to him after this hour." 

"Canailes!" snarled Louis, and Frangois laughed aloud in sheer 

joy I 

"My good, — my strong brother!" he cried out. 

"This Papa Joffre of yours," said the burliest German, — "he 
is worse than a dog. He is a toad." He shoved the captives 
through the opening in the wall. "Get on!" 

"The smallest sergeant in Germany is greater than your Papa 
Joffre," said another. "What is it you have said, baby French- 
man? One frog-eater is worth five Germans? Ho-ho! You 
shall see." 

"I — I myself," cried Frangois hotly, — "I am nobler, braver, 
greater than this beast you call master." 

"Hold your tongue," said a third German, in a kindlier tone 
than the others had employed. "It can do you no good to talk 
like this. Give in, my brave lads. Tell everything. I know 
what is before you if you refuse to-day, — and I tremble. He will 
surely break you to-day." 

They were crossing the narrow road. 

"He is your master, — not ours," said Frangois calmly. 

Louis walked ahead, erect, his jaw set. The blood leaped in 
FranQois' veins. Ah, what a brave, strong fellow his brother was! 

"He is the greatest commander in all the German armies," 
boasted the burly sergeant. "And, young frog-eater, he com- 
mands the finest troops in tlie world. Do you know that there are 
ten thousand iron crosses in this God-appointed corps! Have a 



UNITED STATES— McCUTCHEON 283 

care how you speak of our general. He is the Emperor's right 
hand. He is the chosen man of the Emperor." 

"And of God," added another. 

"Bah!" cried Frangois, snapping his fingers scornfully. "He 
is worth no more than that to me!" 

Frangois was going to his death. His chest swelled. 

"You fool. He is to the Emperor worth more than an entire 
army corps, — yes, two of them. The Emperor would sooner lose 
a hundred thousand men than this single general." 

"A hundred thousand men?" cried Frangois, incredulously. 
"That is a great many men, — even Germans." 

"Pigs," said Louis, between his teeth. 

They now entered the little garden. The Prussian commander 
was eating his breakfast in the shelter of a tent. The day was 
young, yet the sun was hot. Papers and maps were strewn over 
the top of the long table at which he sat, gorging himself. The 
guard and the two prisoners halted a few paces away. The gen- 
eral's breakfast was not to be interrupted by anything so trivial as 
the affairs of Louis and Frangois. 

"And that ugly glutton is worth more than a hundred thousand 
men," mused Frangois, eyeing him in wonder. "God, how cheap 
these boches must be." 

Staff officers stood outside the tent, awaiting and receiving gruff 
orders from their superior. Between gulps he gave out almost 
unintelligible sounds, and one by one these officers, interpreting 
them as commands, saluted and withdrew. 

Frangois gazed as one fascinated. He was a great general, after 
all. Only a very great and powerful general could enjoy such 
respect, such servile obedience as he was receiving from these 
hulking brutes of men. 



284 DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY 

Directions were punctuated, — or rather indicated, — by the huge 
carving-knife with which the general slashed his meat. He pointed 
suddenly with the knife, and, as he did so, the officer at whom it 
was leveled, sprang into action, to do as he was bidden, as if the 
shining blade had touched his quivering flesh. 

Suddenly the great general pushed his bench back from the table, 
slammed the knife and fork down among the platters, and barked : 

"Well!" 

His eyes were fastened upon the prisoners. The guards shoved 
them forward. 

"Have you decided? What is it to be, — life or death?" 

He was in an evil humor. That battery in the hills had found 
its mark again when the sun was on the rise. 

"Vive la France!" shouted Louis, raising his eyes to heaven. 

"Vive la France!" almost screamed Frangois. 

"So be it!" roared the commander. His gaze was fixed on 
Louis. There was the one who would weaken. Not that little 
devil of a boy beside him. He uttered a short, sharp command 
to an aide. 

The torturing of Louis began. . . . 

"End it!" commanded the Prussian general after a while. "The 
fool will not speak!" 

And the little of life that was left to the shuddering, sightless 
Louis went out with a sigh — slipped out with the bayonet as it was 
withdrawn from his loyal breast. 

Turning to Francois, who had been forced to witness the mutila- 
tion of his brother, — whose arms had been held and whose eyelids 
were drawn up by the cruel fingers of a soldier who stood behind 
him, — he said : 

"Now you! You have seen what happened to him! It is your 
turn now. I was mistaken. I thought that he was the coward. 



UNITED STATES— McCUTCHEON 285 

Are you prepared to go through even more than — Ah! Good! 
I thought so! The little fire-eater weakens!" 

Frangois, shaken and near to dying of the horror he had wit- 
nessed, sagged to his knees. They dragged him forward, — and 
one of them kicked him. 

"I will tell! I will tell!" he screamed. "Let me alone! Keep 
your hands off of me! I will tell, God help me, general!" 

He staggered, white-faced and pitiful, to the edge of the table, 
which he grasped with trembling, straining hands. 

"Be quick about it," snarled the general, leaning forward 
eagerly. 

Like a cat, Frangois sprang. He had gaged the distance well. 
He had figured it all out as he stood by and watched his brother die. 

His fingers clutched the knife. 

"I will!" he cried out in an ecstasy of joy. 

To the hasp sank the long blade into the heart of the Prussian 
commander. 

Whirling, the French boy threw his arms on high and screamed 
into the faces of the stupefied soldiers: 

"Vive la France! One hundred thousand men! There they 
lie! Ha-ha! I — I, Frangois Dupre, — I have sent them all to 
hell! Wait for me, Louis! I am coming!" 

The first words of the "Marseillaise" were bursting from his lips 
when his uplifted face was blasted — 

He crumpled up and fell. 



286 DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY 

SONNET 

1 HOU art not lovelier than lilacs, — no. 
Nor honeysuckle, — thou art not more fair 
Than small white single poppies, — I can bear 
Thy beauty ; though I bend before thee, though 
From left to right, not knowing where to go, 
I turn my troubled eyes, nor here nor there 
Find any refuge from thee, yet I swear 
So has it been with mist, — with moonlight so. 

Like him who day by day unto his draught 
Of delicate poison adds him one drop more 
Till he may drink unharmed the death of ten, 
Even so, inured to beauty, who have quaffed 
Each hour more deeply than the hour before, 
I drink, — and live — what has destroyed some men. 



"\ju..l^.'VXi'w^ 



^ 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA— MORRIS 28' 
THE IDIOT 



THE CHANGE was not affected without whispering. The 
spirit both of the troops who were going back of the lines to 
rest and of those who had zigzagged up through two miles of 
communication trenches to take their places was excellent. 

"What is the name of this country?" asked one of the new 
comers. 

"If it has a name, that is all that remains. We are somewhere 
in Picardy. The English are off there not very far. Their cannon 
have different voices from ours. Good luck!" 

His gray, faded uniform seemed to melt into the night. The 
New Comer stepped on to the firing platform and poked his head 
over the parapet. A comrade pulled at his trousers leg. 

"Come down, Idiot," he said, "Fritz is only twelve yards 
away." 

The Idiot came down, sniffing the night air luxuriously. 

"We are somewhere in Picardy," he said. "I know without 
being told. It is like getting home." 

A sergeant approached, his body twisted sideways because the 
trench was too narrow for his shoulders. . 

"Have you a watch?" 

The Idiot had. 

Under his coat, so that the enemy should not perceive the glow, 
the Sergeant flashed his electric torch and compared the watches. 

"Yours leads by a minute," he said. "The advance will be at 
four o'clock. There will be hot coffee at three. Good luck." 

He passed on, and the comrades drew a little closer together. 
The Sergeant's words had made the Idiot very happy. 



288 DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY 

*'In less than two hours!" he said. 

"I thought there was something in the wind," said Paul Guitry. 

"If we advanced only three kilometers," said the Idiot, "the 
village in which I was born would be French again. But there will 
be great changes." 

"You were born at Champ-de-Fer?" 

"It is directly opposite us." 

"You cannot know that." 

"I feel it," said the Idiot. "Wherever I have been stationed 
I have felt it. Sometimes I have asked an officer to look for 
Champ-de-Fer on his field map, and when he has done so, I have 
pointed, and said 'Is it in that direction?' and always I have been 
right." 

"Did your family remain in the village?" 

"I don't know. But I think so, for from the hour of the 
mobilization until now, I have not heard from them." 

"Since the hour of mobilization," said Paul Guitry, "much 
water has flowed under the bridges. I had just been married. 
My wife is in Paris. I have a little son now. I saw them when 
I had my eight days' leave. And it seems that again I am to be a 
father. It is very wonderful." 

"I was going to be married," said the Idiot simply. 

There was a short silence. 

"If I had known," said Paul Guitry, "I would not have boasted 
of my own happiness." 

"I am not the only French soldier who has not heard from his 
sweetheart since the mobilization," said the Idiot. "It has been 
hard," he said, "but by thinking of all the others, I have been 
able to endure." 

"She remained there at Champ-de-Fer?" 

"She must have, or else she would have written to me." 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA— MORRIS 289 

Paul Guitry could not find anything to say. 

"Soon," said the Idiot, "we shall be in Champ-de-Fer, and they 
will tell me what has become of her." 

"She will tell you herself," said Paul Guitry with a heartiness 
which he did not feel. The Idiot shrugged his shoulders. 

"We have loved each other," he said, "even since we were little 
children. Do you know why I am called the Idiot? It is be- 
cause I do not go with women, when I have the chance. But I 
don't mind. They cannot say that I am not a real man, for I have 
the military medal and I have been mentioned twice in the orders 
of the day." 

To Paul Guitry, a confirmed sinner as opportunity offered, the 
Idiot's statement contained much psychic meat. 

"It must be," he said, "that purity tempts some men, just as 
impurity tempts others." 

"It is even simpler," said the Idiot; but he did not explain. 
And there was a long silence. 

Now and then Paul Guitry glanced at his companion's profile, 
for the night was no longer inky black. It was a simple direct 
young face, not handsome, but full of dignity and kindness; the 
line of the jaw had a certain sternness, and the wide and deli- 
cately molded nostril indicated courage and daring. 

Paul Guitry thought of his wife and of his little son, of his 
eight days' leave, and of its consequences. He tried to imagine 
how he would feel, if for two years his wife had been in the hands 
of the Germans. Without meaning to, he spoke his thought 
aloud: 

"Long since,'* he said, "I should have gone mad." 

ITie Idiot nodded. 

"They say," he said, "that in fifty years all this will be for- 
gotten; and that we French will feel friendly toward the Germans." 



290 DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY 

He laughed softly, a laugh so cold, that Paul Guitry felt as if 
ice water had suddenly been spilled on his spine. 

"Hell," he went on, "has no tortures which French men, and 
women, and little children have not suffered. You say that if you 
had been in my boots you must long since have gone mad? Well, 
it is because I have been able to think of all the others who are in 
my boots that I have kept my sanity. It has not been easy. It is 
not as if my imagination alone had been tortured. Just as I have 
the sense that my village is there — " he pointed with his sensitive 
hand, "so I have the sense of what has happened there. I know 
that she is alive," he concluded, "and that she would rather be 
dead." 

There was another silence. The Idiot's nostrils dilated and he 
sniffed once or twice. 

"The coffee is coming," he said. "Listen. If I am killed in 
the advance, find her, will you — Jeanne Bergere? And say what 
you can to comfort her. It doesn't matter what has happened, 
her love for me is like the North Star — fixed. When she knows 
that I am dead she will wish to kill herself. You must prevent 
that. You must show her how she can help France. Aha! — 
The cannon!" 

From several miles in the rear there rose suddenly a thudding 
percursive cataract of sound. The earth trembled like some 
frightened animal that has been driven into a corner. 

The Idiot leaped to his feet, his eyes joyously alight. 

"It is the voice of God," he cried. 

If indeed it was the voice of God, that otlier great voice which 
is of Hell, made no answer. The German guns were unaccount- 
ably silent. 

On the stroke of four, the earth still trembling with the incessant 
concussions of the guns, the French scrambled out of their 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA— MORRIS 291 

trenches and went forward. But no sudden blast of lead and iron 
challenged their temerity. A few shells, but all from field pieces, 
fired perfunctorily as it were, fell near them and occasionally 
among them. It looked as if Fritz wasn't going to fight. 

The wire guarding the first line of German trenches had been 
so torn and disrupted by the French cannon, that only here and 
there an ugly strand remained to be cut. The trench was empty. 

"The Boche," said Paul Guitry, "has left nothing but his smell." 

Rumor spread swiftly through the lines. "We are not to be 
opposed. Fritz has been withdrawn in the night. His lines are 
too long. He is straightening out his salients. It is the beginning 
of the end." 

There was good humor and elation. There was also a feeling 
of admiration for the way in which Fritz had managed to retreat 
without being detected. 

The country over which the troops advanced was a rolling desert, 
blasted, twisted, swept clear of all vegetation. What the Germans 
could not destroy they had carried away with them. There re- 
mained only frazzled stumps of trees, dead bodies and ruined 
engines of war. 

Paul Guitry and the Idiot came at last to the summit of a little 
hill. Beyond and below at the end of a long sweep of tortured 
and ruined fields could be seen picturesquely grouped a few walls 
of houses and one bold arch of an ancient bridge. 

The Idiot blinked stupidly. Then he laughed a short, ugly 
laugh. 

"I had counted on seeing the church steeple. But of course they 
would have destroyed that." 

"Is it Champ-de-Fer?" asked Guitry. 

At that moment a dark and sudden smoke, as from ignited 
chemicals began to pour upward from the ruined village. 



292 DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY 

"It was," said the Idiot, and once more the word was passed 
to go forward. 

II 

X HEY did not know what was going on in the world. They had 
been ordered into the cellars of the village, and told to remain 
there for twenty-four hours. They had no thought but to obey. 

Into the same cellar with Jeanne Bergere had been herded four 
old women, two old men, and a little boy whom a German surgeon 
(the day the champagne had been discovered buried in the Notary's 
garden) had strapped to a board and — vivisected. 

Twenty-three of the twenty-four hours had passed (one of the 
old men had a Waterbury watch) but only the little boy com- 
plained of hunger and thirst. He wanted to drink from the well 
in the comer of the cellar; but they would not let him. The well 
had supplied good drinking water since the days of Julius Caesar, 
but shortly after entering the cellar one of the old women had 
drunk from it, and shortly afterward had died in great torment. 
The little boy kept saying: 

"But maybe it wasn't the water which killed Madame Pigeon. 
Only let me try it and then we shall know for sure." 

But they would not let him drink. 

"It is not agreeable to live," said one of the old men, "but it is 
necessary. We are of those who will be called upon to testify. 
The terms of peace will be written by soft-hearted statesmen; we 
who have suffered must be on hand. We must be on hand to see 
that the Boche gets his deserts." 

Jeanne Bergere spoke in a low unimpassioned voice: 

"What would you do to them, father," she asked, "if you were 
God?" 

"I do not know," said the old man. "For I have experience 



VISITED STATES OF AMERICA— MORRIS 293 

only of those things which give them pleasure. Those who delight 
in peculiar pleasures are perhaps immune to ordinary pains. . . ." 

"Surely," interrupted the little boy, "it was not the water that 
killed Madame Pigeon." 

"How peaceful she looks," said the old man. "You would say 
the stone face of a saint from the fagade of a cathedral." 

"It may be," said Jeanne Bergere, "that already God has opened 
His mind to her, and that she knows of that vengeance, which we 
with our small minds are not able to invent." 

"I can only think of what they have done to us," said the old 
man. "It does not seem as if there was anything left for us to do 
to them. Vengeance which does not give the Avenger pleasure is 
a poor sort of vengeance. Madame Simon . . ." 

The old woman in question turned a pair of sheeny eyes towards 
the speaker. 

"Would it give you any particular pleasure to cut the breasts off 
an old German woman?" 

With a trembling hand Madame Simon flattened the bosom of 
her dress to show that there was nothing beneath. 

"It would give me no pleasure," she said, "but I shall show 
my scars to the President." 

"An eye for an eye — a tooth for a tooth," said the old man. 
"That is the ancient law. But it does not work. There is no 
justice in exchanging a German eye and a French. French eyes 
see beauty in everything. To the German eye the sense of beauty 
has been denied. You cannot compare a beast and a man. In 
the old days, when there were wolves, it was the custom of the naive 
people of those days to torture a wolf if they caught one. They 
put him to death with the same refinements which were requisi- 
tioned for human criminals. This meant nothing to the wolf. 
The mere fact that he had been caught was what tortured him. 



294 DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY 

And so I think it will be with the Germans when they find that 
they have failed. They have built up their power on the absurd 
hypothesis that they are men. Their punishment will be in dis- 
covering that they never were anything but low animals and 
never could be." 

"That is too deep for me," said the other old man. "They tied 
my daughter to her bed, and afterward they set fire to her mat- 
tress." 

"I wish," said Jeanne Bergere, "that they had set fire to my 
mattress." 

A violent concussion shook the cellar to its foundations. Even 
the face of the thirsty little boy brightened. 

"It is one of ours," he said. 

"To eradicate the lice which feed upon the Germans and the 
foul smells which emanate from tlieir bodies there is nothing so 
effective as high explosives," said the old man. He looked at his 
watch and said: 

"We have half an hour more." 

At the end of that time, he climbed the cellar stair, pushed open 
the door, and looked out. Partly in the bright sunlight and 
partly in the deep shadows, he resembled a painting by Rem- 
brandt. 

"I see no one," he said. "There is a lot of smoke." 

His eyes became suddenly wide open, fixed, round with a kind 
of celestial astonishment. Then his old French heart stopped beat- 
ing, and he fell to the foot of the stair. His companions thought 
that he must have been shot. They dared not move. 

But it was no bullet or fragment of far-blown shell that had 
laid the old man low. He had seen in the smoke that whirled 
down the village street, a little soldier in the uniform of France. 
Pure unadulterated joy had struck him dead. 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA— MORRIS 295 

Five minutes passed, and no one had moved except the little 
boy. With furtive glances and trembling hands he had crept to 
the old well in the corner and drunk a cup of the poisoned water. 
Then he crept back to his place. 

The second old man now rose, drew a deep breath and climbed 
the cellar stair. For a time he stood blinking, and mouthing his 
scattered teeth. He was trying to speak and could not. 

"What is it?" they called up to him. "What has happened?" 

He did not answer. He made inarticulate sounds, and suddenly 
with incredible speed, darted forward into the smoke and the sun- 
light. 

A little hand cold and wet crept into Jeanne Bergere's. She 
was vexed. She wished to go out of the cellar with the others; 
but the little hand clung to her so tightly that she could not free 
herself. 

Except for the old woman who had drunk from the well, and 
the old man, all in a heap at the foot of the cellar stair, they were 
alone. She and the little boy. 

"It is true," said the little boy, "at least I think it is true about 
the water . . . when . . . nobody was looking. . . . Please, 
please stay with me, Jeanne Bergere." 

"You drank when it was forbidden? That was very naughty, 
Charlie. . . . Good God, what am I saying — you poor baby — you 
poor baby." She snatched him into her arms, and held him with 
a kind of tigerish ferocity. 

"It hurts," said Charlie. "It hurts. It hurts me all over. It 
hurts worse all the time." 

"I will go for help," she said. "Wait." 

"Please do not go away." 

"You want to die?" 

The child nodded. 



296 DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY 

"If I grow up, I should not be a man," he said. "You know 
what the doctor did to me?" 

"I know," she said briefly, "but you shan't die if I can help it." 

She could not help it. A few minutes after she had gone, his 
back strongly arched became rigid. His jaws locked and he died 
in the attitude of a wrestler making a bridge. 

The village street was full of smoke and Frenchmen. These 
were methodically fighting the fires and hunting the ruins for Ger- 
mans. Jeanne Bergere seized one of the little soldiers by the 
elbow. 

"Come quickly," she said, "there is a child poisoned!" 

The Idiot turned, and she would have fallen if he had not caught 
her. She tore herself loose from his arms with a kind of ferocity. 

"Come! Come!" she cried, and she ran like a frightened ani- 
mal back to the cellar door, the Idiot close behind her. 

The Idiot knelt by the dead child, and after feeling in vain for 
any pulsation, straightened up and said: 

"He is dead." 

"He drank from the well," said Jeanne. "We told him that 
it was poisoned. But he was so thirsty." 

They tried to straighten the little boy, but could not. The Idiot 
rose to his feet, and looked at her for the first time. He must 
have made some motion with his hands, for she cried suddenly: 

"Don't ! You mustn't touch me ! " 

"We have always loved each other," he said simply. 

"You don't understand." 

"What you have been through? I understand. Kiss me." 

She held him at arm's length. 

"Listen," she said. "The old people would not leave the vil- 
lage, — your father and mother ... so I stayed. At that time it 
was still supposed that the Germans were human beings . . .' 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA— MORRIS 297 

"And my father and mother?" asked the Idiot. 

"Some of the people went into the street to see the Germans 
enter the village. But we watched from a window in your 
father's house . . . They were Uhlans, who came at first. They 
were so drunk that they could hardly sit on their horses. Their 
lieutenant took a sudden fancy to Marie Lebrun, but when he tried 
to kiss her, she slapped his face . . . That seemed to sober him 
. . . Old man Lebrun had leapt forward to protect his daughter. 

" 'Are you her father?' " asked the Lieutenant. 

" 'Yes,' " said the old man. 

" ' Bind him,' " said the lieutenant, and then he gave an order, 
and some men went into a house and came out dragging a mat- 
tress . . . They dragged it into the middle of the street . . . 
They held old man Lebrun so that he had to see everything . . . 
for some hours, as many as wanted to . . . Then the lieutenant 
stepped forward and shot her through the head, and then he shot 
her father . . . Your father and mother hid me in the cellar of 
their house, as well as they could . . . But from the Germans 
nothing remains long hidden . . . Your father and mother tried 
to defend me . . . tied them to their bed . . . and ... set fire 
to the house." 

The Idiot's granite-gray face showed no new emotion. 

"And you?" 

She shook her head violently. 

"What you cannot imagine," she said. "I have forgotten . . . 
There have been so many . . . No street-walker has ever been 
through what I have been through . . . There's nothing more to 
say ... I wanted to live ... to bear witness against them . . . 
For you and me everything is finished . . ." 

"Almost," said the Idiot. "You talk as if you no longer loved 
me." 



298 DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY 

The granite-gray of his face had softened into the ruddy, sun- 
burned coloring of a healthy young soldier, long in the field, and 
she could not resist the strong arms that he opened to her. 

"They have not touched your soul," said the Idiot. 



^ ,nujr^ 



L 



UNITED STATES— OPPENHEIM 299 



MEMORIES OF WHITMAN AND LINCOLN 

"When lilacs last in the dooryard bloom'd" 

— W. W. 

ILACS shall bloom for Walt Whitman 

And lilacs for Abraham Lincoln. 

Spring hangs in the dew of the dooryards 

These memories — these memories — 

They hang in the dew for the bard who fetched 

A sprig of them once for his brother 

When he lay cold and dead. . . . 

And forever now when America leans in the dooryard 

And over the hills Spring dances, 

Smell of lilacs and sight of lilacs shall bring to her heart these 

brothers. . . . 
Lilacs shall bloom for Walt Whitman 
And lilacs for Abraham Lincoln. 

Who are the shadow-forms crowding the night? 

What shadows of men? 

The stilled star-night is high with these brooding spirits — 

Their shoulders rise on the Earth-rim, and they are great 
presences in heaven — 

They move through the stars like outlined winds in young- 
leaved maples. 

Lilacs bloom for Walt Whitman 

And lilacs for Abraham Lincoln. 

Deeply the nation throbs with a world's anguish — 
But it sleeps, and I on the housetops 



300 DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY 

Commune with souls long dead who guard our land at mid- 
night, 

A strength in each hushed heart — 

I seem to hear the Atlantic moaning on our shores with the 
plaint of the dying 

And rolling on our shores with the rumble of battle. . . . 

I seem to see my country growing golden toward California, 

And, as fields of daisies, a people, with slumbering up-tunied 
faces 

Leaned over by Two Brothers, 

And the greatness that is gone. 

Lilacs bloom for Walt Whitman 
And lilacs for Abraham Lincoln. 

Spring runs over the land, 

A young girl, light-footed, eager ... 

For I hear a song that is faint and sweet with first love. 

Out of the West, fresh with the grass and the timber. 

But dreamily soothing the sleepers . . . 

I listen: I drink it deep. 

Softly the Spring sings, 

Softly and clearly: 

'7 open lilacs for the beloved, 

Lilacs for the lost, the dead. 

And, see, for the living, I bring sweet strawberry blossoms, 

And I bring buttercups, and I bring to the woods anemones and 

blue bells . . . 
/ open lilacs for the beloved, 
And when my fluttering garment drifts through dusty cities, 



UNITED STATES— OPPENHEIM 301 

And bloivs on hills, and brushes the inland sea, 
Over you, sleepers, over you, tired sleepers, 
A fragrant memory falls . . . 
/ open love in the shut heart, 
I open lilacs for the beloved" 

Lilacs bloom for Walt Whitman 
And lilacs for Abraham Lincoln. 



Was that the Spring that sang, opening locked hearts, 

And is remembrance mine? 

For I know these two great shadows in the spacious night, 

Shadows folding America close between them. 

Close to the heart . . . 

And I know how my own lost youth grew up blessedly in their 

spirit, 
And how the morning song of the mighty bard 
Sent me out from my dreams to the living America, 
To the chanting seas, to the piney hills, down the railroad 

vistas, 
Out into the streets of Manhattan when the whistles blew at 

seven, 
Down to the mills of Pittsburgh and the rude faces of labor . . . 
And I know how the grave great music of that other. 
Music in which lost armies sang requiems, 
And the vision of that gaunt, that great and solemn figure. 
And the graven face, the deep eyes, the mouth, 
human-hearted brother. 
Dedicated anew my undevoted heart 
To America, my land. 



302 DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY 

Lilacs bloom for Walt Whitman 
And lilacs for Abraham Lincoln, 



Now in this hour I was suppliant for these two brothers, 
And I said: Your land has need: 

Half -awakened and blindly we grope in the great world. . . . 
What strength may we take from our Past, what promise hold 
for our future? 

And the one brother leaned and whispered: 

"I put my strength in a book, 

And in that book my love . . . 

This, with my love, I give to America . . ." 

And the other brother leaned and murmured: 

"I put my strength in a life, 

And in that life my love, 

This, with my love, I give to America." 

Lilacs bloom for Walt Whitman 
And lilacs for Abraham Lincoln. 

Then my heart sang out: This strength shall be our strength: 
Yea, when the great hour comes, and the sleepers wake and 

are hurled back, 
And creep down into themselves 
There shall they find Walt Whitman 
And there, Abraham Lincoln. 

Spring, go over this land with much singing 

And open the lilacs everywhere. 

Open them out with the old-time fragrance 



VISITED STATES— OPPENHEIM 303 

Making a people remember that something has been forgotten, 
Something is hidden deep — strange memories — strange 

memories — 
Of him that brought a sprig of the purple cluster 
To him that was mourned of all . . . 
And so they are linked together 
While yet America lives . . . 
While yet America lives, my heart. 
Lilacs shall bloom for Walt Whitman 
And lilacs for Abraham Lincoln. 



304 DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY 



BRED TO THE SEA 



Y 



E who are bred to the sea, sons of the sons of seamen, 
In what faith do ye sail? By what creed do ye hold? 
Little we know of faiths, and we leave the creeds to the parsons. 
But we 'bide by that law of the sea which our fathers made of old. 

Where is that sea law writ for mariners and for captains, 
That they may know the law by which they sail the sea? 

We never saw it writ for sailormen or for masters; 

But 'tis laid with the keel of the ship. What would you have? 
Let be. 

Ye who went down to the sea in ships and perished aforetime. 
In what faith did ye sail? In what creed did ye die? 

What is that law to which your lives were forfeit? 

What do ye teach your sons that they may not deny? 

We kept the faith of our breed. We died in the creed of seamen. 
As our sons, too, shall die: the sea will have its way. 

The law which bade us sail with death in smack and whaler. 
In tall ship and in open boat, is the seaman's law to-day. 

The master shall rule his crew. The crew shall obey the master. 

Ye shall work your ship while she fleets and ye can stand. 
Though ye starve, and freeze, and drown, shipmate shall stand 
by shipmate. 
Ye shall 'bide by this law of seafaring folk, though ye never 
come to land. 



}EFENDEF- ^^'' DEMOCRACY 



BRED iu iiiL. 0'n.A 

£ who are bred to the sea, sons of the sons of seamen, 
III what faith do ye sail? By what creed do ye hold? 
i<irtie we know of faiths, and we leave the creeds to the parsons. 
But we 'bide by that law of the sea which our fathers made of old. 

Where is that sea law writ for mariners and for captains, 
That they may know the law by which they sail the sea? 

We never saw it writ for sailormen or for masters; 

But 'tis laid with the keel of the ship, Wliat would you have? 
Let be. Q g* 

'^ J o^ 
Ye who went down ^ fiQ"! -nd perished aforetime, 

In what " K S* ? iv.. wiiai creed did ye die? 

VS/Tiat is thai w ,-. ■. ; . v . ■ CJ ,|| ; ' - • ' r'^. forfeit ? 

Vvhii iUi vf tt'.ari) N*j:i(3Q-.g V ]u;)v not aetvv' 

We kept the. faith . We died in the creed of seamen. 

As our sons die: the Bea will have its way. 

The law wl !riail with death in smack and whaler, 

In tall ship aitii m open boat, is the seaman's law to-day. 

The master shah iuie iiis crewc The crew shall obey the master. 

Ye shall work your ship while she fleets and ye can stand. 
Though ye star'- •r>i] fr^fz^- snd drown, shipmate shiTl ^r.iiul 
by ship); 
Ye shall 'bide by this law of seafaring folk, though ye never 
come to land. 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA— PRYOR 305 

Ye shall hold your lives in trust for those who need your succor: 
A flash of fire by night, a loom of smoke by day, 

A rag to an oar shall be to you the symbol 

Of your faith, of your creed, of the law which sailormen obey. 

Ye shall not count the odds, ye shall not weigh the danger, 
When life is to be saved from storm, from fire, from thirst. 

Ye shall not leave your foe adrift and helpless; 

And when the boats go overside, 't is, "Women and children 
first." 

We kept this faith of our breed. We died in this creed of seamen. 

We sealed our creed with our lives. It shall endure alway. 
The law which bade us sail with death in smack and whaler. 

In tall ship and in open boat, is the seaman's law to-day. 



^-^tyxiyfr^ 




306 DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY 



OUR DEFENDERS 



A 



CROSS the fields of waving wheat 

And leagues of golden com 
The fragrance of the wild-rose bloom 

And elder-flower is borne; 
But earth's appealing loveliness 

We do but half surmise, 
For oh, the blur of battle-fields 

Is ever in our eyes. 

The robin-red-breast and the wren, 

We cannot barken these 
For dreadful thunder of the guns 

That echoes overseas; 
And evermore our vision turns 

To those who follow far 
The bright white light of Liberty 

Through the red fires of war. 

Our thoughts are with the hero souls 

And hero hearts of gold 
Who keep Old Glory's hallowed stars 

Untarnished as of old ; 
Who join their hands with hero hands 

In hero lands to save 
The fearless forehead of the free 

The shameful brand of slave. 

And through these days of strife and death, 
We know they shall not fail, 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA— STEIN 307 

That Freedom shall not pass from earth 

Nor tyranny prevail ; 
Yea, those that now in anguish bow, 

We know that soon or late 
They shall be lifted from beneath 

The iron heel of hate. 

brave defenders of the free. 

For you our tears of pride ! 
Lo, every drop of blood you shed 

Our hearts have sanctified! 
And through these days of strife and death, 

These weary night-times through, 
Our spirits watch with yours, our love 

It hovers over you. 



308 DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY 

THE BOMB 
I 

''"\7'0U are late. Billy's been howling the house down." 

X "All babies cry, big or little, now and then. The nurse 
is with Billy. I — " Nellie Cameron paused to smooth a quiver 
out of her voice — "I am not late." 

"You are not?" Joseph Cameron, bewildered, laid his paper 
upon his knees and squinted up at his wife. 

"No, Joe, I am not." As if it absorbed her, and no one could 
have said that it did not, for she kept house beautifully, Nellie 
straightened an etching; then quietly she walked out of the room. 

She went into their bedroom and closed the door. After a while 
Cameron, watching warily, saw her come into the hall again in a 
peach-colored dress that he particularly liked her in; saw her go 
down the hall, away from him — and she had a very good back — 
to the nursery door, the warm, cheerful firelight falling full upon 
her face, her hands, her softly glowing dress. Billy, their only son, 
just learning to walk, toddled to meet her. Cameron saw the 
chubby hands rumple her skirts, saw Nellie stoop and swing him 
high with her firm arms, then drop him to his place upon her breast. 
The door closed, the hall was shadowy again, the apartment as still 
as a place marked "To Let." 

The dinner was on time and excellent; Nellie, decorative and 
chatty, was promptly in her place. Dinner over, they went to the 
sitting-room for their coffee. The apartment was very high up, 
the windows looking over the tree-tops of the Drive, across the 
Hudson to the Jersey shore. It was March, and the shore lights 
wavered in gusts of rain that threatened to turn to snow. The room 
was warm; Cameron was suffocating; Nellie was serenely unaware. 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA— WOODS 309 

She had eaten well, from her soup through her cheese. There are 
times when, to a man, a woman's appetite is the last straw. She 
was tired, she said, but at her ease, and never prettier. 

"Going out to-night, Joey?" 

"Yes. Bridge hand around at Gordon's. Want a talk with 
Gordon about a matter of business." 

"I like to have things to do in the afternoon, but when night 
comes" — Nellie smothered a contented yawn — "I love getting into 
something comfy, and just buzzing round our own lamp." 

"I must own that I have never found afternoon diversions to be 
diverting." To save him he could not keep his voice good-natured. 
He had had a grind of a day, and was dog-tired; it seemed to him 
she ought to know it and talk about it. 

"Yes?" Nellie mused. "It was amusing at the club to-day — the 
Non-descripts." She laughed softly. "It wasn't 'nondescript' to- 
day, though!" 

"Some old maid telling you to bring your children up on the 
county, and throw your husbands out of their jobs?" 

"What, Joey?" Nellie seemed to bring her thoughts back from 
a long way off. "Old maid? I should say not! We had a man. 
We nearly always do. Then everybody comes, and there's more 
glow. He was an English socialist — I guess he was a socialist. 
Burne- Jones hair, and a homespun jacket, — loose, and all that, — 
and a heavy ribbon on his glasses. He talked about the new man." 

"The— what?" 

"The new man." Nellie opened her eyes wide, as if her hus- 
band puzzled her. 

"Well— I'm damned!" 

Nellie broke into sudden mirth. 

"You were, Joey dear; that is just what you were. You were 
damned all the way there and back again." 



310 DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY 

Cameron strangled. 

"Have I the honor to typify the — new creature?" 

"You're the very image of him, Joey dear." And she smiled 
upon him as if he were some new moth, in at their window, to buzz 
round their lamp. 

"And — this person — ?" 

Nellie became eagerly communicative. 

"I do wonder if I can make you see him? Tall and dark, and 
with good-looking, thinnish hands and a most amusing way of play- 
ing with his eye-glasses. You know, Joey : the sort of distinguished 
talk-it-all-out sort of man that just makes men rage. Of course," 
she went on, largely wise, "he's the sort of socialist to make a real 
socialist rage, but he's just the thing for clubs." 

"You often have them?" 

"Of course," she laughed. "You see, we don't see much of men 
at home any more. It keeps us from forgetting how you look, 
and how amusing you may be." 

Cameron gazed before him into a chaos without words. 

Nellie was oblivious. 

"He finished off with a perfect bomb, Joey. It was funny! 
Of course the new man's a city product, and he drew him to the 
life: rushed and tortured by ambition, tired out at the end of the 
day, too tired to be possibly amusing, his nerves excited till any- 
thing quieter than lower Broadway hurts his ears, all passion and 
brilliance spent on business, dinners here and there, with people 
who all have their ax to grind, too, and are keyed up to it by rows 
and rows of cocktails. He drew him without mercy, and he had 
every wife there either wincing or laughing, with the truth of what 
he said. He was quite eloquent." She paused, she laughed softly, 
she turned her eyes upon him. "Then, Joey, guess — ^just guess! 
— what he said!" 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA— WOODS 311 

"Far be it from me!" 

"He said that any intelligent modern woman would require at 
least one husband and three lovers to arrive at the standards and 
companionship of one wholesome old-fashioned man!" 

Cameron got to his feet and held to the top shelf of the book- 
case. 

"Do you mean to tell me that respectable women sit and listen 
to such talk?" 

"But, Joey dear, you see so little of us respectable women now, 
you don't really know us — " 

"It's not decent — " 

Nellie was all patience. 

"But, you know, Joey dear, I think maybe it is true. Don't you 
think so?" 

Cameron swallowed two or three retorts; then with a laugh that 
seemed to break to pieces in the air, he went into the hall, got into 
his hat and coat, and left the house. 

Nellie listened gravely. 

"Poor dear old land-lubber!" she sighed. "But it had to come 
sooner or later!" Then she went to the telephone. 

"57900 Bryant, please. May I speak to Mr. Crane?" 

II 

W HEN Cameron came in at midnight he found his wife and his 
old friend Willoughby Crane playing chess in the dining- 
room. 

"Hello, Joe, old man," murmured Crane. "That you?" 

"Why, yes, I believe it is I," said Cameron. 

"Almost forgot what you looked like," Crane rambled pleas- 
antly. "Dropped in for a reminder." 



312 DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY 

"I'm sorry to have missed you," muttered Cameron. 

"Well, you haven't altogether missed me, you know: so cheer 
up, old man. If Nell's good for a rubber, you may have the joy 
of my presence for an hour or two longer. You're lucky, having 
a wife who can play chess!" 

"Get yourself a drink, Joey," suggested Nellie. "The whisky's 
in the sideboard, down on the left." 

"Don't you suppose I know where the whisky is?" demanded 
Cameron. 

"Maybe there's not much left." Nellie looked on, all solici- 
tude. 

Cameron, his thought babbling over the good old days of the 
ducking-stool, poured himself carefully a highball that was brown. 
Silence reigned. The light fell upon the head and shoulders of 
Crane and upon his long, quick-jfingered hands. 

"After a man has slaved his soul out," Cameron moaned, "these 
are the things a woman cares about!" 

Crane won the rubber, and spent considerable gallantry upon 
Nellie in compensation. Cameron had yawned all through, but 
no one had noticed. Crane lighted a cigarette and perched upon 
the comer of the dining-table. 

"I say, Joe, got anything on to-morrow night?" 

"I have," said Cameron. 

"Something you can't chuck?" 

"Scarcely. A directors' dinner." 

Crane grew thoughtful. 

"You certainly are a victim of the power-passion," he sighed, 
considering Cameron. "I don't know how you stand it. I'd have 
more money, no doubt, if I weren't so apathetic, but, by Jinks, it 
doesn't look worth it to me!" 

"A question of taste," said Cameron, briefly. 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA— WOODS 313 

"Taste? If that were all!" He smoked, looking at Nellie 
through the haze. "I say, Nell, I've got tickets for Kreisler to- 
morrow night. Comewithme, there's a good girl! Lend me your 
wife, will you, Joe?" 

"Lend?" echoed Nellie. "I like that! Anybody'd take me for 
goods and chattels. Of course I'll come. I'd love to." 

"You know, Joey," Crane went on simply, "Nellie's the only 
woman I know that it's real joy to hear music with. She knows 
what she's listening to. A fellow can sort of forget that he's got 
her along, and still be glad he has. As for you, you old money- 
hunting blunderbuss, the way you squirm in the presence of music 
ought to be a penitentiary offense. I'm almost glad you can't go." 
He gave a laugh that was dangerously genuine, and bolted for the 
hall to get his coat and hat. 

"Poor old Joe is almost asleep," said Nellie, sweetly. 

Joe did not look it, but Willoughby got out solicitously, and he 
sat upon a damp bench opposite the Camerons' glowing windows, 
and he laughed and laughed till a policeman sternly ordered him 
to move on. 

"Isn't Willoughby a dear!" Nellie commented as she moved 
about, putting things in their places for the night. Cameron 
yawned obviously. Nellie hummed a snatch of a tune. 

All that long night Cameron lay stretched upon the edge of 
their bed, staring into the lumpy darkness. Nellie slept like a 
baby. But once, soon after the lights were turned off, Cameron's 
blood froze by inches from his head to his feet. It seemed to him 
that Nellie was laughing, was fairly biting her pillow to keep from 
laughing aloud! Gravely, of the darkness, he asked how all this 
had come about. He asked it of the familiar, shadowy heap of 
Nellie's clothes upon the chair by the window, asked if he had 
deserved it. Toward dawn he slept. 



314 DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY 



III 



C 



AMERON, after the way of the new man, kept some evening 
clothes down town. It saved traveling. The next afternoon, 
about four o'clock, there came, somewhere between the pit of his 
stomach and his brain, an aching weight. Conscience! At six- 
thirty he hung his dinner-jacket back in the closet and sent the 
directors word that he had a headache. Then, as blind as a moth, 
he started for home, for that lamp about which Nellie "loved to 
buzz." 

He let himself into the apartment, chuckling to think of Nellie's 
surprise, at just the hour at which they were used to dining. The 
place was shadowy, the table in its between-meals garb. The ach- 
ing weight came back. He tapped at the nursery door. 

Miss Merritt, the nurse, was dining by the nursery window, 
Billy's high chair drawn near by. Billy, drowsy and rosy, was 
waving a soup-spoon about his head, dabbing at the lights upon 
the silver with fat fingers that were better at clinging than at let- 
ting go. 

"Good evening, Miss Merritt," said Cameron. "Hello, Bill! 
Where's your mother?" His tone struck false, for through his 
mind was booming the horrible question, "Can Nellie have gone out 
with that ass Crane to dine?" 

Miss Merritt's mousy face became all eyes. 

"Why, sir, Mrs. Cameron has gone out to dinner, and after to 
a concert. I guess you forgot, sir." 

"Oh, yes," said Cameron, easily. "This is the night of the con- 
cert. I had absolutely forgotten. I'd have got a bite do^vn town 
if I'd thought. Is the cook in?" 

"Sure, sir. I'll call her." 

She left Cameron alone with Billy, who, cannibal-wise, was 



VNITED STATES OF AMERICA— WOODS 315 

chewing his father's hand and crowing over the appetizing bumps 
and veins. 

"If you'd jest 'ave 'phoned, sir," panted the cook, who was a 
large, purple-faced person. 

Cameron sighed. 

"Just anything, Katy. I have a headache. Some eggs and 
toast — poached eggs, I think." 

In another moment the maid passed the nursery door, with white 
things over her arm, on her way to set the table. 

Cameron, dazed as never in his life before, lifted Billy to his 
shoulder and trotted up and down the room. "Nice little boy!" 
he laughed, Billy's damp fists hitting at him in ecstasy. "I'll just 
take him to the sitting-room while you finish your dinner." He 
did his best to pretend that the situation was not unusual, to act 
as if, in his own home, a man could be nothing but at home. All 
these confounded hirelings, acting as if they owned the place, had 
the cheek to be amazed over his dropping in! 

Miss Merritt beamed. 

"I always say, sir, that boys should know their fathers." 

"Boys should know their fathers?" This was almost the last 
straw. 

"Here!" said Miss Merritt, holding out a pink-edged blanket. 
"Jest put it on your lap, sir." There was about her that utter and 
peculiar lack of decorum that is common to nurses and mothers, 
and Cameron, blushing furiously, grabbed the blanket and fled. 

"Boys should know their fathers, hey?" Cameron was en- 
raged. "We'll see about that pretty quick!" Billy crowed with 
joy as the blanket flapped about them, and, above the chasm of his 
doubts and his conscience Cameron heard himself laugh, too. He 
got into his arm-chair. Billy, so warm and solid and gay, so 
evidently liking him, gave him, parent that he was, the thrill of 



316 DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY 

adventure as his hands held him and knew him for his own. The 
blanket spread upon his knees, the door closed, Cameron expanded 
with the desire to know his son, even as it was desirable that his 
son should know him. He turned him over and around, he studied 
the vagaries of scallops and pearl buttons; profoundly he pitied his 
small image for all of his discomforts, and advised him to grow 
out of safety-pins as fast as possible. He fell into a philosophical 
mood, spouting away at Bill, and Bill responded with fists and 
delicious gurgles and an imitative sense of investigation. Cam- 
eron reflected, with illumination, upon the amusing sounds a baby 
makes when the world is well. They were really having an aw- 
fully good time. 

Billy was fuzzy and blond, one of those moist, very blue-eyed 
babies that women appreciate. Cameron all at once saw why. 
Warmth expanded his aching heart, and his arms circled his own 
mite of boy. Billy yawned, agreed instantly with Cameron that a 
yawn from a baby was funny, and with a chuckle pitched against 
Cameron, bumped his nose on a waistcoat button, considered the 
button solemnly, with his small mouth stuck out ridiculously, and 
then snuggled into the hollow of his father's arms, and, closing his 
big eyes with a confidence that made thrills creep over him, the 
man, and brought something stinging to his eyes, Bill went to- 
sleep. 

After an unmeasured lapse of time, Miss Merritt came for the 
baby. "Oh, the lambkin! Ain't he sweet, sir?" 

Cameron ached in every joint, but he did not know it. 

"Take care how you handle him!" he whispered. "It's awful 
to be wakened out of one's first sleep!" 

"I know better than to wake a sleepin' baby, believe me," said 
Miss Merritt with a touch of spice. 

The door closed. Cameron sat stretching his stiff arms and legs 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA— WOODS 317 

and staring before him, and upon his usually tired and lined face 
was the beam of full joy. 

Then came dinner, a lonely, silent mockery of a meal. And 
back the question came, booming over the soft tinkling of glass and 
silver. He realized, with his salad, that four nights out of seven, 
Nellie dined like this, alone. His lower lip protruded, and lines 
of conscience fell in a curtain upon his face. 

"Mrs. Cameron hates eatin' 'lone, too," said the maid. "She 
generally eats early, so 's t' have Billy in his high chair 'longside. 
If he sleeps, she reads a book, sir." 

He was alone in the sitting-room with his coffee, and the place 
had sunk into fathomless silence. It was only half after eight! 
He stuck his head out of the window. Soft flakes touched and 
soothed his feverish head. "Damn money!" he whispered sud- 
denly, then stood back in the room, startled, staring his blasphemy 
in the face. He'd go out in the snow, and get rid of himself. 
This was awful! 

Bundled in a greatcoat, collar high, trousers rolled up, he ducked 
out of the great marble and iron vestibule into the night. There 
was no wind, and the snow was falling softly, steadily. The drive 
was deserted, and he made his way across to the walk along the 
wall. By the light of a lamp, blurred by the flakes till it looked 
like a tall-stemmed thistle-ball, he looked at his watch. No mat- 
ter where Nellie had dined, she was at the concert by now, and 
a great sigh of relief fluttered the flakes about his mouth. 

He turned north, glad of the rise in the ground to walk against. 
"By jinks!" he smiled grudgingly, "it's not so bad out here. We 
city idiots, we — new men, with all our motors and subways, we 
are forgetting how to prowl." 

The world fell off" to shadow a little beyond the shore-line, a 
mere space of air and flakes. Ice swirled by its way to the sea, 



318 DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY 

for the tide was going out. He peered ; he began to hear all sorts 
of fine snow-muffled sounds; and suddenly, away out on the river, 
something was going on — boats whistling and signaling, chatting 
in their scientific persiflage, out in the dark and cold of the night. 
"Lonesome, too!" Cameron laughed, and, boyishly, he tossed a 
snow-ball into the space, as if he'd have something to say out there, 
too! "I'm soft!" he groaned, clutching his arm. And suddenly 
he smiled to think how one of these days he and Bill would come 
out here and play together. He looked about, and a sudden pride 
filled him. He was actually the only creature enjoying all this 
splendid snow! He had passed one old gentleman in a fur-lined 
coat, with a cap upon his white hair, walking slowly, a white bull- 
dog playing after him in the scarcely trodden snow. 

Cameron turned home, a new and inexplicable glow upon him, 
cares dropped away. He marched; he laughed aloud once with 
a sudden thought of Bill. "Little corker!" He let himself in, 
and went straight to the bedroom to change his shoes. "I must 
get some water-tight things to prowl in," he thought, and he whis- 
tled a line of "Tipperary." Blurred in a pleasant fatigue he sat 
on the edge of his bed, staring at his wet socks, when the telephone 
jingled, and he hurried out to answer. 

"Yep, this is Cameron. Oh, hello, old girl! Thought I'd just 
come up for a quiet home dinner, you know." A grin like the 
setting sun for warmth spread over his face as he listened, as he 
felt the tables turning under his wet feet. 

"Nope. Just bored down-town. Felt like bein' cozy and — 
buzzin' round the lamp in something comfy. Fine! Had a regu- 
lar banquet! Bill's all right, little devil! I tucked him in so he 
shouldn't be lonesome. 

"Me? I've been out walkin'. Been throwin' snow-balls at the 
street-lamps. My feet are soakin', but I don't care, I don't care. 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA— WOODS 319 

Heard a concert myself, thanks. Whistles and things tootin' out 
in the snow on the river to beat the band ! Don't think of it! I'm 
fine. Enjoy yourself. What's life for? Good night, old girl. 
Don't lose your key!" 

Cameron got as far as the cedar chest in the hall, but there, in 
his wet socks, he sat down and he laughed until he ached all over. 
Suddenly he stiffened, and his heels banged against the chest. 

Miss Merritt, mouth and eyes wide open, stood absorbing him, 
as crimson as was Cameron himself. 

"I heard the 'phone," she faltered. "Mrs. Cameron always 
calls up to know if Billy's all right — " 

"I know that she does," said Cameron, stiffly, and, rising, he 
stocking-footed it past her and shut himself in his bedroom. 

"Yes, sir; good night, sir." Miss Merritt stared at his door. 
"Good Lord!" she whispered in the nursery, "how awful for Billy 
and her if he takes to drink!" 

Nellie came out of the telephone booth, her face white with 
horror. "Willoughby," she gasped, "get me a taxi quick!" 

"Billy—" 

"No, no, 710.^ It's Joe!" 

"What—" 

"Oh," she wailed, "I've gone too far! Joe is — drunk!" 

Willoughby's face went to pieces. 

"Don't look like that, Nell! Don't! What of it? Just what 
we've been up to, isn't it?" 

"How can you say that? Get my wraps. I am going home." 

"Your car isn't ordered till eleven — " 

"What do I care what I go in? Oh, I have been such a fool!" 

"Don't mention it," grinned Crane as he wrapped her coat about 
her. 

Gaily Crane waved his white-gloved hand to her, her face gleam- 



320 DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY 

ing back pearl-like for an instant in the shadowy taxi ; then she was 
whirled northward and lost in the snowy night. Back in his place, 
next to Nellie's empty chair, he mused tenderly over the vagaries of 
a mere bachelor till the incomparable Austrian carried his mind off 
to where tone is reality, where there is neither marriage nor giving 
in marriage. 

Nellie fitted the key into the lock. Her fingers shook. The 
apartment was dark except for a light in the hall, and as still as 
if it were empty. If only Joe would stay asleep till he'd had time 
to sleep this horrible state of affairs away! 

She switched off the light and carefully let herself into their 
room, and stood a moment, huddled, breathless, against the door. 
The room was ghostly. The vague, snow-veiled light filtered in 
from the street-lamp below, making of Cameron an incoherent 
lump, wrapped to his eyes in the covers of their chintz-hung bed. 

Her hands clasped tight, she peered at him through the shadows. 
He did not move. He was sleeping heavily, curiously, irregularly, 
his breath coming in jerky little snorts. "Oh," she wailed in her 
guilty heart, "he is, he is! Poor dear old Joey, drunk! And it's 
all, all my fault!" Swiftly she undressed in the dark. If he were 
to awaken, to begin saying awful maudlin things — 

Her heart pounding, she lifted the covers and crept into martyr- 
dom on the hard edge of the bed. Cameron slept on. Once he 
seemed to be strangling in a bad dream, and she fought with her 
sense of duty to awaken him, then, miserably, let him strangle! 

Gravely Nellie's tired eyes traveled from familiar shadow to 
shadow, to rest at last upon the dangling heap of clothes upon a 
chair by the window that symbolized Joe Cameron by the sane 
light of day. Fatigue tossed her off to sleep now and then ; terror 
snatched her back and made her cry. In the first faint dawn she 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA— WOODS 321 

awakened with a start to find that in her sleep her tired body had 
slipped back to its place, and her head was resting deliciously upon 
her pillow. And, with the growing dawn, humor came creeping 
back, and try as she would, her mouth twitched. Of all people, 
dear old Joey! Carefully she turned her head and peered at him. 
His face was turned toward her, what light there was fell full 
upon him. Wonder took away her smile. His face was fresh, 
the lines of care and worry softened away as if he were at the end 
of a two weeks' vacation. She rested her chin on her arm, amazed, 
puzzled. And suddenly a grin like the sunrise spread over Joe's 
face, and he opened his eyes. 

By courtesy of The Century. 



322 DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY 

TO THOSE WHO GO 

IN a sense the hundreds of thousands of American soldiers who 
go to France are modern crusaders. Like the valiant men of 
the Middle Ages who traveled far to fight in strange lands for the 
ideal that possessed their souls, these twentieth-century knights- 
errant go to defend the ideals of liberty and right and honor which 
are the issues of this war and which our Allies have successfully 
upheld for more than three years. 

In that chivalric spirit General Pershing stood at the tomb of 
LaFayette and said, "LaFayette, we are here." As a young man 
only twenty years old LaFayette went out to a new land to fight 
for liberty, and now after nearly a century and a half the same 
inspiration that sent him forth is taking our young men back to 
fight in the land of his birth the old fight for right. The great 
romance of international history which the relations of France and 
America have afforded from the birth of this republic has entered 
on a new chapter with the pilgrimage of our fighting men to Eu- 
rope, and the inestimable service of LaFayette and his comrades 
to our infant republic is now to be in part repaid by the nation 
that France helped to establish. 

But though it is a chivalric mission on which our soldiers go, 
they should not enter France in the attitude of saviors. It must 
be remembered that the United States came very late into this 
war, and while our troops and even more our money and material 
resources may have decisive weight toward victory, yet it is France, 
England, Italy, Russia against whom the enemy has spent his 
strength. Our Allies have brought the war already to its turning 
point, and we can at best only add completeness to their achieve- 
ment. Furthermore, while we aid France and her Allies, we are 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA— HERRICK 323 

defending ourselves also. We went to war because Germany was 
killing our citizens, was plotting against the peace and security of 
our nation, because her restless ambition and lust for power were 
choking not only Europe but the world. 

Our American soldiers will find in France a people who have 
endured with wonderful courage and devotion through more than 
three years of terrific strain against odds which must often have 
seemed hopeless. The French are the heroes of this war. They 
have been in the fight from the beginning and will be there until 
the end. Their armies were fully engaged when England had not 
a hundred thousand men under arms and Italy was a neutral ; they 
fought on when Russia lost her grip; and they will not quit until 
their land is cleared of invaders and the Prussian shadow that has 
darkened France for more than forty years is lifted. More than 
any other country except Belgium, France has felt the horror and 
hardships of the war which we are spared because she has paid 
the price of our protection. 

American soldiers who go to France are to be envied because 
they are getting what comes to few men, — opportunity to be of 
direct, vital service to the country. To be young, to be fit, to have 
a part however small in the great events that are making the world 
over into a safer and happier place for our children to live in, is 
something for a man to be proud of now and to remember with 
satisfaction to his last day. 

The war may last much longer than we now anticipate, but there 
can be no doubt of the ultimate victory of the cause to which we are 
committed. The world never turns back, it moves always forward, 
always upward. Our soldiers may go out, as the Crusaders went 
of old, with absolute faith that their service will not be given in 
vain, that their effort and daring will not be unavailing. 




324 DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY 

THE HERO'S PEACE 

X HERE is a peace that springs where battles thunder, 
Unknown to those who walk the ways of peace 
Drowsy with safety, praising soft release 
From pain and strife and the discomfortable wonder 
Of life lived vehemently to its last, wild flame: 
This peace thinks not of safety, is not bound 
To the wincing flesh, nor to the piteous round 
Of human hopes and memories, nor to Fame. 

Immutable and immortal it is bom 

Within the spirit that has looked on fear 
Till fear has looked askance ; on death has gazed 
As on an equal, and with noble scorn. 
Spurning the self that held the self too dear, 

To the height of being mounts calm and unamazed. 

Castle Hill, Virginia 



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